Under Lock & Key

In Under Lock & Key 71 we promoted a campaign in Texas’ Allred Unit for phone access and video visits during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The campaign won this immediate goal, although the campaign included a list of 15 demands that included an end to long-term solitary confinement, good time credits, releases related to COVID-19, the right to vote and more that were not addressed. Below one of the leaders draws some lessons from the campaign. Both of the excerpts below are from discussions among USW leaders on current conditions for organizing in prisons.

A USW comrade in Texas: Seven days after the phone zap all prisoners in Restrictive Housing Unit (RHU), even those on level 3, began receiving free phone calls weekly. The admin bought cordless phones, there is one on each pod. Each day one section gets calls. There are only 6 sections per pod, so 1 day of the week is ‘stuck out phone call day’ for those who may’ve gotten moved, downgraded etc. So the zap and the strike were a success, but I also observed some keen lessons. Oh, before I say that let me say that the above arrangement is supposed to last until the OTS bluephones are installed. This is what we’ve been told, although I don’t believe it.

Now the lessons: #1. A more profound respect for the necessity to remain underground. This coincides with #2 which is that the masses, both those within the organized body (the rank & file) and outside that body, are EASILY pacified with the simplest reform because for most lumpen the “invincibility” of the state and admin remains intact. Therefore if in the event the admin actually budges in any way it is considered a monumental victory and complacency sets in. That’s what I’m dealing with now surrounded by masses on the “outside of the body.”

Backtracking to #1, I find myself surrounded by masses on the outside now because the admin was made privy to my position and influence among the active protagonists (Team One). As you know, I was isolated, rehoused. Since then some captives have used their outside contacts to apply pressure to admin – this resulted in the discontinued practice of isolation of dissidents on level 3 pods. Consequently I was moved again, and although things are favorable here in most ways, the point is that the admin’s success in separating the cadres has circumvented my attempt to mobilize peers to push the movement forward.

However, I truly think that once the ‘free’ calls are taken away, and it goes back to $15 for a 5 minute call, and no OTS phones have been made available, people will see exactly what I’ve been preaching to them the last 3 months or so, then the material conditions will be ripe again. In the meantime, I’m working on developing new cadres.

MIM(Prisons): The comrade above reported on repression and bad-jacketing efforts by the state, but has worked against them through mass contact and political education. While the focus of the campaign became the immediate goal of phone access during COVID-19, the demands highlighted much bigger concerns, including the end to long-term solitary confinement, which MIM(Prisons) has spent a lot of time campaigning for over the years. Another USW Leader addressed the issue of organizing around immediate, minor reforms in the USW leaders meeting while discussing local conditions in eir prison:

USW comrade N: The most pressing issues at this facility are of course important to all who feel strongly about them (i.e.: phone access to loved ones during the lockdown). However from an organizers’ perspective, these are not battles in which we can effectively push anti-imperialism forward, much less Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), without veering into reformist practices of little tactical or strategic value. I am aware that arguments on principle can be mounted to the contrary, but absent a practicable, totalizing strategy for revolution domestically being put forward by an MLM organization that is actionable in the here-and-now (notwithstanding the exemplary work MIM(Prisons) has exhibited in their particular field of operations), we cannot effectively utilize many of these prison struggles as a proper springboard to corresponding actions in other areas, actions which do not translate into long-term pacification which benefits their prison administration in an objective, cost-to-us, benefit-to-them analysis.

If we cannot muster the resources and external manpower to mount a facility or state-specific campaign for a tactical reform to push our agenda and continually imprint firmly in the minds of all incarcerated that we have their best interests in mind, it may be advisable to abstain from participation lest credit for the reforms go elsewhere and becomes politically-neutered, or, worse yet, the system co-opts the struggle as its own and touts its successes (ie. The First-Step Act). Otherwise, we are gaining no more than sporadic traction amongst those we are attempting to revolutionize, and then only of a transient nature. We should not be trying to ‘improve’ American prisons, much like we should not be attempting to cut a bigger portion of imperialist profits from Third World super-exploitation for the lower class, yet still relatively privileged, citizens of empire.

If we are to engage in any prison organizing, then censorship battles concerning our political ideology, the UFPP and the Re-Lease on Life programs should take center stage. I find it harder to advocate quality-of-life reforms which are not linked to a totalizing revolutionary strategy outside the walls. Our goal is to radicalize those on the inside, for subsequent outside work. As for our comrades who do not have the luxury of a release date, or have sentences which essentially translate into the same, their best hope for release lies not in reforms but with an all-sided MLM revolutionary organization planning their release through eventual Peoples’ War. It goes without saying that for them, and for everyone suffering under American imperialism, the sooner, the better.

*In case it may not appear as such, all of the above is written in the spirit of “Unity-Struggle-Unity.”

MIM(Prisons) adds: Comrade N echoes MIM(Prisons) in calling for campaigns around censorship battles, building a United Front for Peace in Prisons and developing Re-Lease on Life programs. Ey reflects our general practice in shying away from inherently reformist campaigns; ones that do not contribute to our long-term goals and projects. We include the struggle against long-term isolation on that list, which Team One included in their demands, but was perhaps dismissed as a throwaway demand.

Our comrade in Texas suggests that organizing may start up again when the state doesn’t keep its promises. And we should note that it can be hard to separate out UFPP development work from reformist campaigns. Formations like Team One serve to unite different lumpen formations for common cause. With the correct leadership, and keeping our eyes on bigger goals like the UFPP, and uniting others around a list of more impactful demands, reformist campaigns like phone access could be productive. At this point we rely on the leaders of Team One to make that determination.

We think both the comrades here are contributing greatly to work on the ground and to developing the knowledge and line of our movement overall. We can also say that only focusing on the reformist campaigns, without the longer goals, is not going to change anything in regards to ending oppression and injustice. Scientific leadership liquidating its demands in the masses is an error that will not get us anywhere good either. We’ve seen many who say they unite with our goals but argue that the masses aren’t ready for them so they hide their true politics. This is called tailism, and it has not proven effective in building the communist movement.

Finally, Comrade N makes the point that we need a broader communist movement to be guiding our work in a strategic way. The fact that we are just a prison ministry focused on prisoner support, without a larger organization/formation to be guiding our work leads us much more susceptible to the trap of reformism. This is why it is important for us to be involved in the development of a broader communist movement in this country and to link up with other forces that have the correct orientation around key questions for communists.

This year has been filled with misinformation, in the media that has been strategically broadcasted to mislead, antagonize and keep people divided. It is beyond my comprehension to understand how people reason with themselves to vote for people to office as their representatives without analysis of what is really going on. All year long the media broadcasts visible contradictions in everything these representatives say and do, yet no one questions or holds these representatives accountable for their actions and inactions.

Movement after movement has arose in opposition to inactions or actions of government officials, but to what end? or means? These movements proclaim this and that end or means but without any analysis of what is really taking place. I see no method for resolving these contradictions to any prosperous end through any known movement. Our movement (MIM(Prisons) and associates) are included in my analysis because of recent dissonance. The Spring 2020 ULK No. 70 publication attempts to demystify MIM’s failures, but has either forgotten or not published Mao Zedong’s cataloged weaknesses exhibited by themselves or the lumpen-proletarians as revolutionary soldiers. The following should be published as strong talking points for future issues:

1. The military viewpoint – A tendency to regard fighting as the only task of the army, avoidance of such political tasks as educating and organizing the mass of the people, arming ’em and helping ’em to establish their own political power. Without this fight/politikal work the whole fight is lost and its meaning and the revolutionary a reason for existence.

2. Extreme democracy – Aversion to discipline, each commander and soldier going their own way in a carefree manner.

3. Absolute equalitarianism – A demand that everyone be treated alike regardless of circumstances; meanwhile no one is created equal.

4. Subjectivism – Holding opinions and criticisms without a realistic examination of the facts and without regard for politikal principle, basing opinions on random talk and wishful thinking; focusing criticism on minor issues, petty defects and personal quirks. All of these only lead to mutual suspicion and unprincipled quarreling between people.

5. Individualism – Vindictiveness, cliquism, the mercenary viewpoint; holding oneself responsible to individual leaders rather than to the revolution as a whole; Hedonism – an urgent desire for personal comfort and pleasure, longing to leave the hard life of struggle and find some softer spot.

6. The idea of roving insurgents

7. Adventurism – Acting blindly regardless of conditions and the state of mind of one’s forces; Slack discipline on the one hand but corporal punishment and the execution of deserters on the other, attempting to enforce rather than to inspire loyalty to cause.

These are the tenents we need to analyze and play on to prevent any challenges to our rule before the revolution begins and count on ’em to disrupt the revolution once it begins!

In Struggle.

Amerika declared war on New Afrika, first and foremost by the murdering of New Afrikan men, women and children and then imprisonment. Amerika made movies and television shows (the news) to publicly show other fellow white supremacists in and outside this country her kills and trophies. This was also to instill fear into the so-called blacks to not defend oneself from these eminent attacks on us.

Whether we are in these concentration camps or in the free society, Amerika is murdering us and are using us to Blackface this evil nation to try and gain freedom, justice, and equality with the Black Lives Matter movement. But they don’t give no credit to the originators of the phrase “Freedom, Justice and Equality”, who are those who come from the Moorish Science and the Nation of Islam.

Black Facing of Amerika is also the browning of Amerika… By the sexualization of our brothers’ phallus or Mandingo and our sisters’ big breast and booties, both sexes of the white nation exploit our reproductive organs for their own survival and our own destruction. Despite improvements in recent years, New Afrikan males are still more than 5 times likely to serve long prison terms than white males, and New Afrikan infants are still 3 times as likely to die than white ones. The prison is a major location of the control of New Afrikan sexuality and reproduction, which once took place on the slave plantation.

In The Man-Not, Tommy J. Curry explains,

“Enslaved Blacks were denied manhood and womanhood, they were defined as beasts of burden whose bodies were used at the discretion of whites. Violence against the enslaved took no gendered form. It was unbridled violence against Black bodies where rape was enacted against both sexes.” (p. 158)

“The prison subsumes the Black male self only as penis and flesh. In Soul on Ice, Cleaver notes that”the penis, virility, is of the Body. It is not of the Brain… [I]n the deal which the white man forced upon the [B]lack man, the [B]lack man was given the Body as his domain." Toward the end of the 1960s, Cleaver had already worked out the role white administrators (in both society and prison) determined for the Black penis: It was the symbol of pure animalistic brute sexual force, the criminal rapist beast." (p. 86)

This imperialist/capitalist nation white-washes us so they can be able to Black face in a whole new level. We must fight to defend our minds, our souls, and our bodies; fight to defend our elders, our children, our men and our women. It’s time to police our own neighborhoods as the rapper G Herbo said. It’s time to separate from the United $tates and become New Afrika. It’s time to depend on ourselves and ourselves only! Stand for what you know is truth or die for the lie$!

Remain Consciously Conscience

The Black petty bourgeoisie are in all areas of the socially oppressed and economically oppressed communities; from churches, schools, boards of directors, your city councilmen/women and especially the entertainment business. They’ve taken in these capitalist and imperialists’ potion (lies) and love the brief ecstasy it brings them. As a drug addict, you’re induced into a temporary high, and once the high is gone, you notice that you either need more or you could stop, but why should these talented Tenth, or house negroes want to become rehabilitated? They see and hear the truth but being conscious makes them believe they are in control. So unconscious becomes their mind state chemically-induced coma, while walking. It becomes almost as dangerous as their masters’ frame of work!

What is Blackface? It was originally a form of racist comedy put on by the Europeans in this country. They paint their faces and act as an ignorant black person. Then they transmutated that ideal and inserted its ideological substance there in our ancestors’ minds. In which, they begin to put on the Black face paint and act as ignorant as our captors did, believing it to be the only way to take back the “joke” from our oppressors. Sad to say it only amplified their criterion for a stronger potion (lies) for Us to take! Alchemy at its best.

Now that the chemical has arrived, it is slowly being administered to our children, or the “colorized people.” The black petty bourgeoisie begin to release statements such as: ‘You must work hard and not think about the environment you’re in! That is in order to succeed in life!’ Yet, I see the working class and many are still being feasted on by the ruling class parasitic capitalism!

We need to weed out these conscious but unconscious in our communities! For they are the potion of lies waiting to be administered to our present Brothers of Struggle and Sisters of Struggle (BOS and SOS) within the United Struggle from Within (USW). We must begin to insert our truth, the original truth(s) of our ancestors. It is the first vaccine, so to say, that will cause a chemical reaction to their lies. Next is where we sit at in these institutions of slavery. We must re-educate not only oneself, but our Brothers and Sisters of struggle, where you are currently held captive. Then call out those in our communities that wear this Black face.

Capitalism and imperialism was born by racism and colonialism, that’s why socialists and internationalists must be self-determined and head strong. Words are the deaf, dumb, and blind poison! Its transmutation becomes one’s actions, habits and then your way to death, self genocide! Remain consciously conscience.

Black Face of America

It has come to the attention of We, the politically intelligent mason prisoners of amerika in California, the sudden changes of opinion by U.S. society and its exploiter nation’s status quo to no longer look favorably on the social construct of cross dressing, make-up drag or Halloween costumes done in the fashion of Black face. This narrative goes to draw a connection to the false information campaigns led by the bourgeois pop culture executives in order to keep the population of exploiter nations like the U.S. in a state of false security and economical privilege as underdeveloped nations around it suffers.

No white man, woman, or child should be caught painting their face Black - especially those who hope to have a career in social politics. Question is, when Blackness is not only a state of mind, but also the substance of which all things are manifested from, including the outer orbits of space called the Universe, is Blackface really that wrong?

When being Blackface isn’t at all that easily escapable for the darker shades of humanity, and is actually necessary in the national suicide process of neo-Nazi defectors and Euro-amerikan/white supporters of New Afrikan liberation by reparations, repatriation and total autonomy for all things indigenous to Afrika. And really, who of us doesn’t want to claim a little Afrika, aka Blackness for ourself?

Facts are that people have been tanning since the beginning of Egyptian/Summarian civilizations. So why is it currently being blasted all over capitalist news media broadcasting stations that this Black facing is a national catastrophe in need of most attention and immediate gratification?

It’s just that; immediate gratification, something that has very little to do with solving long-term conflicts in any given phenomenon, but instead is a diversion in interest of the long-term imperialist agenda to bourgeoisify the entire world with the capitalist systems of greed, ignorance and destruction.

Anyway, Halloween and its costume parties aren’t the subject in need of discussion. What is most needed for the politically inclined to wake their game up in is the why questions posed by brothers and sisters of the African National Prisoners Organization (ANPO) and New Afrikan Shamaan (NAS). Why does the devil call our people black? Or even African for that matter?

This is a subject that has begun to resurface in prisons, in such a way that it has been the reason for violent group altercations and segregated populations, resembling the Jim Crow south. (Jim Crow was a famous Black face character performed by a white entertainer.)

When Black Face Goes Bad

In California prisons, the segregation issue is at an all time high because it is a culture that is integrated so deeply amongst the population that Blacks segregate themselves into groups amongst themselves. There are those who consider themselves to be African-American, those who consider themselves Negroes, those who say they are Black and those who struggle for national independence under a variety of terms, for example the Asiatic Free Moors and the New Afrikan.

There is a very real divide between these populations that needs to be consolidated if it is to be that prisoners as a whole will ever come together in peace to face the exploiters. Where prisoners as a whole are made up of several nationalities, that will play a powerful role in a united effort to overthrow the current prison structures. Every national population must seriously organize itself in a Community Social Accountability Regiment to draw the lines between the political divides within We the oppressed internal semi-colonies of the oppressor nation, Amerika, if We are to ever get beyond failed hunger strikes and commissary boycotts. Though the immediate gratifications offer a temporary relief from the pressures of confinement. We escape to Walt Disney’s World of mystic illusions, the state department is still subjecting We all to toxic prison conditions. And as long as We are a divide between who isn’t Black and the argument that this whole entire damn planet is Black, We shall remain a population of social rejects, ignorant to the science of self.

The year 2020 was hectic and alarming to say the least. From Pre$ident Donald Chump’s outrageous attempts to wrestle power away from the traditional bourgeoisie, to COVID-19, which threw the entire world for a loop and tragically ended the lives of over a million people, mostly in the Third World. The year 2020 has been one in which the already ugly face of imperialism has been peeled back far enough to where even first worlders could catch a glimpse of what’s hidden underneath.

The depravity of Amerikkkans’ twisted desires for a return to a social order in which Amerikkka is clearly and definitively on top has been on full display for the world to see. From the extra-judicial killing of New Afrikans and other oppressed nation people by law enforcement, to the lynching of New Afrikans in liberal Los Angeles County, Califaztlán; the principal contradiction of Amerikkka vs the oppressed nations remains the existential threat to the people of the internal semi-colonies. As such, what has been made clear to revolutionaries from the oppressed nations is the urgent need to organize the Chican@, New Afrikan, and First Nations along communist lines. One of the few organizations in the United $tates attempting to do this is the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons (MIM Prisons).

As is already widely known by U.$. prisoners, a U.$. federal court has ruled that prisoners cannot be excluded from applying for and receiving economic relief under the CARES Act. This decision allowed for thousands of captives to receive $1,200 stimulus checks with more already on the way.

As an anti-imperialist who’s worked with MIM(Prisons) for almost two decades I have requested and received a plethora of study materials from them, most free of charge. In 2015, MIM(Prisons) released Chican@ Power and the Struggle For Aztlán, which focuses on the hystory, present, and future struggles of the Chican@ nation from a Maoist perspective. This project was very expensive and pushed back the release of MIM(Prisons) own contemporary text, The Lumpen Handbook.

MIM(Prisons) is not a huge organization, nor do they have the big name recognition which other more amorphous groups with opportunist politics do. What they do have, however, is a correct political line for the liberation of the internal semi-colonies and a communist cadre committed to serving the imprisoned masses. So if you believe in struggling for an Aztlán libre then one thing you can do at this time is send a donation to MIM(Prisons). Sending money to them will help fund not only the next issue of Under Lock and Key, but the free Books to Prisoners program. If you believe that Black Lives Matter, then donate to MIM(Prisons) and continue funding the education of revolutionaries behind prison walls.

Let us then take this opportunity to contribute to the anti-imperialist movement to end the oppression and exploitation of the oppressed nations by U.$. imperialism by giving something back to MIM(Prisons) after they’ve spent years giving us so much.

[NOTE: For ways to donate, please see our get involved page. We are working on a second printing of Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán, if you want to pre-order a copy just let us know when you send your donation of $20 or more.]

All Power to those who deserve it, all those who fight for it and all those who know. The hunger strike at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (SATF) over conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic is still alive. Though the leaders have suspended the starvation act of the strike, our workers strike remains alive. We determine that our Covid Intervention Statement remains relevant as an organizing tool to those involved in the struggle to force the transparency of California Prisons. It’s sad that it takes individuals to put their life at stake before the public can have knowledge made known of the conditions we suffer. But it is how it goes within the belly of the beast. Leaders plan to resume the hunger strike at a later date of 2021, and will notice at the point of strike.

We suspend our strike solely because the conditions began to take a very unhealthy turn, with little adequate record keeping power of the families and supporters to know just what is happening with the healthcare of the leaders. By no means do we want our suspension to be construed as a resolution of our DEMANDS being met. For there can be no talks of SATF Administration meeting strikers’ DEMANDS when SATF and CDCR Director Connie Gipson fall silent to ANSWER to the statement of prisoners at SATF hunger striking. They do not deserve this sort of CREDIT.

The conditions of building 2, where prisoners receive showers every 72 Hrs. Laundry exchange, including sheets and pillow cases are unknown to any other living units. And Phone calls have been consistent to once per week. Meals remain served cold. Showers remain dirty, standard of PPE remain poor, and the package officer L.A. Alvin is said to have been rerouted to G Facility Gym 2 weeks ago. For 3 days packages were issued, and then they were stopped.

The more pressing issue is testing and quarantining prisoners, that first DEMAND. It would seem that SATF has engaged in testing, hence the report of the outbreak. The high numbers serve as a focal point and evidence of the need for families and supporters of prisoners to mend broken relations between one another and unite against this human rights disaster. The hunger strikers recognize the support the public gave, and we say that though SATF and CDCR fall silent to answer the DEMANDS of the strikers, members of the public did not fall silent. Members of the public stood in solidarity with the strikers, accepting the terms of which we testified to be true, spreading this as high as the State Capitol. We rest in recovery from the loss of body weight, consequent to starvation. But we know that there are members of the public who are now directly connected to the struggle here at SATF in the Valley of Death’s shadow.

In the question of what it is that leaders achieved in starving themselves in this ACTION, we won the fight to silence prisoners by the noise of CDCR Covid scheme operations. We raised awareness in the Valley in solidarity with other prisoner leaderships in prisons across California, that CDCR’s failure to protect the imprisoned population where Covid is concerned is unacceptable.

A public stage has been made available to prisoner leaderships in the shadow of Death Valley, where once it had gone silent. The CDCR culture known as the ‘Code of Silence’ cannot rule where there are members of the public willing to speak out and ACT out in criticism of the state, its departments’ bureaucracy and the ACTIONS of its agents.

The REPUBLIC and SOVEREIGN will of individuals, independent of the state, acting in collaboration with WE who struggle for human decency against all odds.

WE together born about a culture that ushers a future where redemption is real. Reconciliation is possible, and reparations are as simple as a public admission of guilt, an apology and plan of action to make right said wrongs.

This is what we struggle for. NO MORE SILENCE, give us answers. The supporters of the strike have done great in raising awareness that here at SATF there are those who have starved to improve the conditions within CDCR as it relates to Covid. We have established court in the streets, now we will begin releasing our AFFIDAVITS and MOTIONS for orders against these FACILITIES, like SATF. COMMON LAW RULES everywhere in AMERICA where the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM fails. All that is needed are a few FARMERS who can teach how to GROW and provide WORK to the UNEMPLOYED, for there remain WE who will WORK for food, and stock inner-city community food banks. A few BAILS BONDSMAN willing to perform CITIZENS ARREST of ASSETS LIQUIDATABLE in PERSONAL DAMAGE CLAIMS of PRISONERS, against correctional staff and healthcare personnel for COVID ATTACKS.

What the PIGS are doing to us is equal to a carrier of COVID intentionally coughing in the face of someone who hasn’t been exposed.

It’s assault and battery.

We will begin putting out BENCH WARRANTS for offenders, and from here on out the PUBLIC OPINION will decide their FATE. COURT is in the STREETS.

THE FAILURE OF CDCR HAS BEEN ACCEPTED AS AN ACT OF WAR AGAINST WE PRISONERS.

Right now we need our supporters to help us get our health back up so that we can make our next strike. We can use whatever folks can by making a deposit into our inmate trust account.

Using JPAY Deposits, supporters can send leaders money for canteen where food purchases, cough drops, lotions, spices, herbs, oil and vitamins may be purchased to do for themselves what the institution will not do for them. [Contact MIM(Prisons) to get a name to send donations to.]

As of today [20 November 2020] this is day 22 of this hunger strike that [2 members of the local USW cell and one other comrade] have been on at CSATF D-Facility. Reason that we’re on this hunger strike is for CDCR, the state of California and the Governor of California Gavin Newsom’s failure to protect us prisoners from any harm.

Our strike has been reported on by ABC30 through a group called “Oakland Abolition and Solidarity.” Our 3 demands are as follows:

1. Universal, voluntarily applied testing and treatment for COVID;

2. Return of safe program and basic necessities, namely: Law library, telephones, showers, dorm cleaning supplies, hot meals and canteen;

3. Create mechanisms of accountability by which independent family and supporters on the outside have visibility on CDCR’s plans and actions during and after an outbreak like this.

This facility is locked down and all means of congregation have been canceled completely. The program has been such since early April 2020, but has become more dire since July. Meanwhile, like other facilities in California and across the country, staff regularly interact with prisoners with no mask on and are the source of the virus for those of us locked in these cages.

The overall population has been in a state of panic, fear and complacency. But leaders have been on hunger strike since 29 October 2020; abstaining from all hard/solid foods. This includes meals offered by the Department of Corruption and the institutional canteen.

The brothers here are still putting in work and continuing their studies.

Currently I’m in confinement in Florida, pending CM (Close Management) waiting on state classification officer decision. PIGs (Pro-Imperialist Goons) claim I was organizing or encouraging a riot or disturbance. All a ploy to get me behind the door for pushing the pen too effectively. I’ve just successfully appealed 4 disciplinary reports (D.R.s) written against me, including a D.R. written by the Assistant Warden.

In the mean time, I’m reading throw-back ULKs. Stuck in No. 54, learning so much. MIM, you have been so much help in my gaining political awareness, revolutionary transformation and personality. My first ULK was in 2012. I haven’t looked back since. Thank you so much.

I’m reading the article, “Coffee house revolutionaries or real militants?” by an Ohio komrade, who referred to MIM as coffee house revolutionaries, which I see as a constructive complement rather than a dis. And as I expected, in response MIM is not offended. I’m feeling this article because its helping me realize that in the struggle, everybody can’t be infantry guerrilla, the struggle need planners and other part players. The hand is made of 5 fingers, and each finger plays an equally valuable role in doing whatever the hand does.

If it wasn’t for the dialectics of coffee house revolutionaries like MIM, I would not be as effective as I am today. I would still be fighting these pigs with emotions rather than revolutionary intelligence, discipline and creativity. In order for our struggle to be effective, we need the historical analysis of coffee house revolutionaries, just as we need solid boots on the ground. We are all in the same struggle, against the very same enemy oppressor, and we are effective and victorious as long as we never forget this one point in unity for solidarity.

It’s only best that we learn from each other, constructive criticism plays a major role in self-criticism. I did a drawing once of Obama, with an obelisk in the background. MIM wrote back sending me a list of historical reasons illustrating why Obama and obelisk should not be in the same piece. The picture was contradicting itself more than doing what it was intended to do; show Obama as a black face for capitalist imperialist white supremacy. I missed my mark, and MIM made me see that via the show of Obama’s repeated drone assassinations, mass deportations, granting impunity to PIGs lynching us in the streets and court rooms, he did nothing about mass incarceration, knowing that Blacks and poors are being targeted. MIM showed me the truth, and being a good revolutionary has a lot to do with gaining truth and putting that truth into practice, and learning from the result of that practice.

MIM has been with me from my beginning stages, responding to all my letters and requests for study materials, and guidance when no one else cared or was able to care. I learned that i had to establish myself in the struggle, and MIM made it easier for me to do so. The books, the study materials, the jailhouse lawyer’s manuals and the plain old camaraderie needed as a lone operative. MIM inspired a creativity in me that the PIGs came to know and fear. PIGs are afraid of pen pushers, but when you go to reaching out and over the heads of their impunity granting bosses, they pay attention. There is nothing like a warden receiving a phone call from someone, or several people on the outside about some brutality that was not supposed to leak out from behind the Amerikkkan iron curtain. I kept reporting to MIM and anyone I thought cared, MIM would publish my reports, someone would read it and call the institution. All it takes is one phone call. And you know when they get phone calls, their body language tell it all, they speak without words.

The bigger their show, the bigger their fear. One time in 2014 they woke me up, sliding my cell door open with a bang at 1:00 in the morning, cuffed me up and took me to the security building just to ask me, “Who is MIM?” My only response was, “We want egalitarianism.” They didn’t even know what egalitarianism was. These PIGs are terrified of revolutionary civility. They expect us to behave like the animals they’ve been conditioned to believe we are, and when we show the opposite, we disarm them. They know we can go from zero to 100 in a split second, but our self-control, organizing, discipline and solidarity makes them unable to sleep at night.

Do your historic research, the revolutionary has never been the one to initiate violence, violence has always been initiated by the government. The revolutionary has only responded with self-defense. Self-defense is a must. The first thing every revolutionary must learn is that the capitalist-imperialist white supremacist is not just going to peacefully pack up and go home. They’re not just gonna give up the means of production and subsistence and power.

We need coffee house revolutionaries in the towers, at the computer screens, in the libraries, etc etc. to let us know what we are dealing with or what’s coming and the most effective scientific means of engagement. Just as importantly, we need mechanics, technicians, carpenters, plumbers, cooks, teachers. We all have to play our individual part in this struggle as a collective, in theory and in practice. MIM has taken on the practice of teaching theory and practice and that’s what revolution is, theory in practice.

With MIM’s help, I have learned and I have grown to the point where I am in solidarity with myself and others on the inside and outside, and I am still learning and growing, making a difference by being different. Sentenced to life for the gun, and being buried alive for the pent. Thanks to MIM, who gave me precious time and undivided academic attention, I’m giving these PIGs hell, with just an ink pen. Just imagine me holding a gun again, this time genuinely rehabilitated. And I am a state(enemy)-labelled sex offender. I believe in rehabilitation, I don’t care who you are, you can be rehabilitated. You can be a revolutionary, practice self-criticism, and let your action do the talking. I’ve been in and out of prison more than half my life, and I have never seen the state genuinely rehabilitate anyone. Genuine rehabilitation is like freedom, you have to give it to yourself.

All Power to the Proletarians.

Get Involved

At the moment, during this pandemic and major outbreak inside prisons, CDCR has decided that it is best to shuffle/transfer prisoners like never before in prison history. There are transfers going on, on a major scale, daily. The administration sent out a memo and order to open up a ‘quarantine’ block in every prison across California designated for people coming in from and going to another prison –- we are being quarantined for fourteen days on our way in and out, at every stop.

Before, if you’d asked any prisoner in California if they ever got transferred out a prison they didn’t wanna be in or got transferred due to their custody points level dropping (therefore belonging to a lower/higher security yard) they would answer ‘fuck no’!!! People would be stuck in a Level 4 yard (high security) while being Level 3 (lower security) eligible for up to years at a time – or at the very least, six months. And now, at this precise moment and time of outbreak and pandemic, CDCR decides to look at each case factor and execute transfers according to their ‘code.’ People are coming in and out of every prison in California to these designated ‘quarantine blocks.’ For the first time ever, Level 1, 2, 3 and 4 are meeting up in these blocks, meeting up from all prisons and transferring out to all prisons. It would be irresponsible to think that this is not an operation by the system with the intent and agenda to exterminate its population.

On paper, the administration is making it look good by conducting and documenting daily medical and temperature checks for the two weeks of quarantine, and doing two COVID-19 swab tests before allowing prisoners on a transportation bus… but what CDCR is not telling the public is that if one refuses to take a temperature check and refuses to take the COVID-19 swab test, you will still be transferred, still get on the bus, still spread whatever you have around, still use the same showers, phone, water fountain, and be allowed to roam around!!! Yes, the ones that refuse do not leave on the 14th day mark, instead they’re documented as not transferring due to their refusal, etc. But CDCR still transfers them after an additional week of being on ‘quarantine.’ In the fifteen years I’ve been captive, never have I ever seen so many transfers myself –- nor seen the prison system shuffled up in this manner where we have about 10-15 prisons in one ‘block.’ We got people from Chino, Folsom, Lancaster, Jamestown, Corcoran, Salinas, Delano, San Quentin, Calipatria, the Bay, Solano, High Desert, all coming in four times a week on a consistent basis, and we are all confined in these newly implemented ‘quarantine blocks.’ How’s this for fighting COVID-19?

One would be ignorant not to see what these suits and ties at the table are putting in motion here. I’ve been doing my research and talking to people as they come from all these prisons they are coming from and it is amazing to hear how correctional officers and wardens are bouncing people around within the prison itself before shipping them out, how the administration gave out orders to correctional officers to do this, do that, try this under the ruse of combating COVID-19 while putting prisoners in harm’s way via reckless transfers. The stories are lengthy and too many to describe, but I will do so in a future piece and with proper equipment. For now, I’ll just use my case and experience as a small window to provide insight to the public about what the system is doing and to expose their agenda.

First off, I am a radikal intellectual, politikal prisoner, activist, abolitionist, revolutionary, Sureno artist, who has been targeted by the system throughout the years and well-documented. I was housed at New Folsom for three years before the pandemic kicked off and I went under quarantine. I had just got out the hole because the administration attempted to blame and charge me for an attempted murder that I had no knowledge of. I was back on the main line after the long battle of the torture and mental stress of being in the hole, then out of nowhere, the administration kidnaps me once again and I’m placed under another ‘investigation.’ They refused me my due process of signing a liability chrono to go back to the yard, and instead stuffed me in the hole again.

Then, as COVID-19 begins to worsen inside the prison, the administration puts me on a bus … I end up in Lancaster … I’m there for two weeks, then they let me run around the prison for one full day just to come back to my living quarters to be informed that I’m gonna be transferred again!!! I’m like, what the fuck is going on here? I’m telling the counselor, captain, committee, that what they are doing is wrong and how they putting me and everyone else at greater risk of getting sick by doing this. They told me that is not them, its the federal courts who ordered this!! I’m trying to tell them about all they’re doing wrong and how I just got to that prison two weeks prior that, etc. … nope, nothing, on another bus!! Now I get to Calipatria and I come to find out that everyone around me is experiencing the same thing! I was already in a yard of my ‘custody level’ so why continue to shuffle people like there’s no tomorrow? It is clear to see what’s happening here. If there’s a way I can file a lawsuit or join one already taking place I would like to do that. If not, well fuck it, its still fuck CDCR on mine!! Nothing about what this system is attempting to do is towards a healthy California – the only ones making sure we maintain a healthy structure is the prisoners ourselves and our loved ones. The agenda of the system is still more boxes and forms of genocide, war, population control.

This is a statement of unity issued by Dead Man Incorporated(DMI) to inform all concerned of our alignment to and full co-operation with the United Front for Peace in Prisons.

After discussion we have come to the general consensus that a unity amongst us and other oppressed peoples caught up in the struggle would best suit all involved in the interest of our common goal of ending the tyranny of the imperialist states.

The maintaining of the principles of the UFPP are critical and imperative in our mission. We, as DMI, value Peace, Unity, Growth, Internationalism and Independence. From henceforth each of us promise to uphold those principles; mind, body and spirit.

Furthermore, let it be known that We as DMI stand in alliance with the UNited Struggle from Within.

Now, after some 2500 being infected with COVID-19 and more than 2 dozen deaths; Phase 2 of the Pestilence Pilot Program on San Quentin’s Death Row begins pretty much the same way it kicked off back in late March/early April ( see Pestilence Pilot Program: Another Way to Thin Out the Death Row Population at San Quentin").

The same rotating yard schedule resumes. The only speed bumps added were down days on Monday & Wednesday and a few more due to feigned concern about air quality. But health & safety doesn’t seem to be a factor in decisions affecting the yard program. Lt. Bloise even fired all Death Row workers. So there’s nobody to disinfect the yards or the tiers in any meaningful way. Those chores are left to the same disrespectful sows that refuse to comply with California Health & Safety Code 113969 Hair Restraints during in-cell food service.

None of that should surprise anyone. SQ’s Acting Warden, Ron Broomfield, routinely dismisses advice from Public Health Professionals like Dr. Matthew Willis (see San Francisco Chronicle: Web Edition for the report by Megan Cassidy called “San Quentin Officials ignored Coronavirus Guidance from top Marin County Health Officer”). Ever wonder why the U.$. leads the world in number of people infected with and dead from COVID-19? The evidence points to the rejection of the science and the withholding of facts. We see that a lot.

One example of rejecting science is Broomfield dismissing the recommendations of Dr. Willis. That’s the SQ version of Trump and Fauci as if existing in a parallel universe, right? No, it’s just one of many clumps in the same shit box. Saying one thing while doing another proves to be one creative way SQ withholds facts. One example is given when a positive COVID test was reported in East Block on 18 September 2020. For maximum dramatic effect the yard program was shut down about 45 minutes early. At some point in time the positive prisoner was moved to the Adjustment Center (The Hole) instead of Donner as was supposed to happen according to the 4 August 2020 Edition of “The Informed Patient: A San Quentin Newsletter”. It’s written and published by the “Healthcare and Leadership Team at San Quentin”. That’s not taught in just any creative writing class.

Withholding facts also helps control the narrative in the media. While it has become “common knowledge” prisoners from Chino were transferred to SQ not having been tested 2 weeks prior; nobody seems to find it important to determining how or where those transferred prisoners became infected. It’s just assumed it was brought from Chino. The actual number of staff cases at SQ prior to the transfer was successfully minimized by the 27 March 2020, Broomfield/Verdier Memo which reports: “On Thursday, March 26,2020, we learned that a member of our staff has tested positive for COVID-19”. Of course, it’s obscured that up until June all other employees entering San Quentin were only having symptom checks not COVID tests. Since few then (and even now) wear masks at all times, asymptomatic spread was imminent if not rampant.

Exactly how many employees were/are going in and out being asymptomatic and contagious was/is ignored just like Broomfield was/is ignoring recommendations of the Public Health Department.

The masks initially provided to prisoners on Death Row were not capable of protecting the wearer. They were made by PIA from cloth normally used to produce jumpsuits/prison uniforms. Prisoners on Death Row didn’t receive N95 masks until over 1000 tested positive, many ended up in outside hospitals and others were found dead in their cells. We who survived the first wave are now approaching the 100th day since the positive test results from 15 June 2020.

According to the current science, antibodies last on average around 4 months (120 days). CDCR at SQ is now in position to repeat the same experiment. What does the science say about those who expect a different result? The second wave to hit SQ will be a tsunami. The only thing different will likely be who the CDCR blames (if history teaches us anything).

The September 14 newsletter gives itself a pat on the back for a job well done and blames ignorance of science regarding masks in the beginning of the pandemic. Their creative newsletter claims “researchers didn’t think wearing masks would protect people from spreading the virus”. Did a “researcher” write that or did the writer not know real scientists (and painters) to know the difference between an N95 mask and a cloth mask? It sounds like freestyle back pedaling.

According to the newsletter’s “current statistics” there are zero new cases. There are 2147 said to be “resolved” (but no positive cases determined by 15 June 2020, test results were ever retested to confirm this). It says there are 10 “Active” in-custody cases while 186 of 288 confirmed staff cases have also been designated “resolved” and have returned to work (but without retesting first). That same newsletter admits they don’t know if such people “may infect other(s)” (page 3 of issue 12).

Perhaps it’s more scientifically accurate to explain the numbers like this: There is nobody “new” left to infect so anyone not exhibiting symptoms now is dead or considered “resolved”. Those who kept testing negative were positive and actually “resolved” before the 15 June 2020, testing took place. No retesting for prisoners who tested positive in June was facilitated asymptomatic spread.

Unfortunately, the most useful part of the SQ newsletters have been the word search puzzles. Oh yeah, it may be funny to hear somebody tell one of these disrespectful sows they should put their mask on one leg at a time since their head is up their ass, but that’s no joke! And this is no laughing matter. If this paragraph didn’t get edited out, the impact on the writer’s mental health might seem apparent.

UPDATE: On 21 November 2020, it was reported that an SQ Death Row Officer on 3rd Watch tested positive for COVID-19. This may prove to be a repeat of what followed after it was reported via Memo issued by (a) Warden Broomfield and (a) CEO Verdier that, “On Thursday March 26, 2020, we learned that a member of our staff tested positive for COVID-19.”

If you’re familiar with the popularized story attributing the cause of the outbreak at San Quentin to a transfer of inmates from Chino, be aware of the omitted facts. Those reports make no mention of the March 27, 2020 Memo quoted above. Perhaps those journalists in the mainstream don’t even know that memo exists. But their reports claim there were no COVID cases before the transfer. This means those journalists got it wrong in part.

That does not mean the CDCR is not responsible for the outbreaks then or now. In fact, it only demonstrates here what is being seen across the whole United $tates – selfish individuals who think they’re better than everyone else refuse to comply with the most basic safety protocols (wearing a face covering).