by Political Prisoner

, RAYMOND LUC LEVASSEUR

]
Marion Prison

Many thanks to: Generik

Eileen Fandlay, computer wiz,

Unkie Punky Graffix,

all you stubborn friends of

political prisoners everywhere;

and Mom, who bought me this swell mimeo.
--velvet, for F.0.P.P.

First printing: September- October 1993,

All typos & misspellings sole responsibility of
Friends of Political Prisomers, Bx 3113
wadison, Wi, 53704, Empire.
>/ ==

“"All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the
dusty recesses of their minds
wake in the day to find that it
was vanity: but the dreamers of
the day are dangerous men, for
they may act their dreams with
open eyes, to make it possible."

---T. E. Lawrence
SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM

3 I also think it’s a good idea not to
| have any fixed notions in one’s head. I
/4 don’t want any one to tell me where 1
/ N
( should put my attention first. If down
\ the line we can try to respect each other
according to the principle of self-deter-
f» mination then we can begin to move forward.
There are enough of us to go around and
¢ you don’t have to do what I do and vice
' versa. I do this and you do that, there

L is plenty of room. _yuqe Jordan

y Blood
Is Quebecois

Salut mes socuro et freres:

MY NAME IS RAYMOND LUC LEVASSEUR. Luc is my peperes
name, which T carry with Franco pride. I come from a long line of mill
workers, and grew up in the overbearing shadow of textile mills and shoe
factories of Southwestern Maine. My father was born in the Quebec nation.
We called ourselves French Canadian, or simply French, and that's what
others called us. Our detractors held a different perspective and referred
or "maudive (godamn) canucks.” Those were fighting

10 us as "frogs
words then, and they are now

11°S ALWAYS FELT natural for me to refer 1o myself as French
Canadian. To think of myself this way. What it means to me is that my
blood is Quebecois. We didn't use the term Franco- American when |was
coming up. Between the time [ left Maine in 1964 and my return in later
vears, "Franco-American” became widely used. I've always associated
Franco-American with France or canned spaghetti. | don'tsay this
disparagingly. but simply as a comment of how I was taught (o sce things.

[ realize that the hyphenated American signifies assimilation into the
American landscape, if not the American dream. While 1 do not deny the
reality of assimilaiion, neither will 1 deny the moral bankruptey and
nightmare that America is for many of us. Personally and politically |
draw the line at complete assimilation into the worst aspects of 100
percent Americanism. Apparently the government concurs, as it holds me
in an isolation cell in the infamous control unit prison at Marion, illinois.

MY GRANDPARINTS WINT to work in the iextile mills at 13
and 14 years. My mother and father went into those mills at 16. My turn
came at 17, when | misrepresenied my age 10 a mill boss in order o work
on a machine making shoe heels. From the earliest years I'd watched my
family and predeminantiy French Canadian neighbors erter and leave the
mills. Now | followed them into an exceedingly unpleasant experience,
Perhaps you've had such an experience and don't have o rely on the
imagination 1o conjure up the sweat of oppression. At the time my
immediate co-workers were mostly French-Canadion. While 1 had gone
farther in school then the others, none on the shop floor had a good
education.

... My grandparents went to work in the textile
mills at 13 and 14 years...

We worked in the shell of the old Goodall mills - 4 miscrable runaway shop y
that fled South. destroving unions in its wake. We had no union protection

and it showed. The pay was low, the work demanding, and the conditions .
hazardous. Specd up was used 1o maximize exploitation. To resist the

debilitating cffects of this speed up my French Canadian brethren

introduced me 1o the proverbial shoe- le sabot - with which we jammed

the machines. Tt was my first act of sabotage, but a long way from my last.

Our immediate objective was 1o draw the line at how many shoe he
we'd have o produce per hour, beyond which the task became

ine reasingly exhaustive and dangerous. We had our dignity. and in this
small way, sought 1o dispel the power that the mills held over us- mills
that we commonly belieyed were owned by wealthy Anglos from out of
state.

A FUTUREEIN the mills became all the more (rightening when a
Franco school friend. working in a mill across from mine, got his arm
caught in a machine that choked him 1o death. He'd quit school 1o earn a
living and was rewarded with an carly death.

A MACHINE CAN Kill in the blink of an cye, but mill work can
take decades 1o ravage @ body and soul. My pepere worked in textile mills
aslong as | could remember. e was @ man who ok pride in carrying a

tunch pail and bringing home a pay check. “This was a man who used 10
bounce me on his knee, and for whom [had the greatest respect. When
the mill where he worked closed and moved south. he was discarded like
an old pair of shoes. A worker to the depth of his soul, he was without a
joh. 1twasn't long betore his health began o noticeably deteriorate. He
had difficulty with his balance, his hands became unsteady and his
breathing ibored, One day he fell in the chicken coop and T went to help
him. e no longer had the strength and steadiness 1o get himself up. 1
picked him up from where he'd fallen in dirt and excrement. In my arms
he feltas light as a child. My memere and 1 cleaned him up and rolled him
a Bull Durham. " Things will get better” we said, as 1 disguised my hatred
for those mills that demanded so much from our lives.

but how was [ (o strike back at the mills and
factories that exploited us...

THERE WAS NO improvement. My pepere was a World War 1
veteran, so we ook him 1o Togus. After the VA warchoused him in a
corner, he begged 1o come home, so we brought him back 10 die. Within a
year my memere was living with my mother because she could no longer
afford 1o live alonc

BEING OF FRENCI C ANADIAN blood and working class has
W of the American political/economic system and

impacted on my v
society. Twas told o sirike back at those who made ethnic slurs about us,
and 1 did. Still, 1 heard the insulting remarks about us as being stupid,
Tazy and papist dominated. But how was |10 strike back at the mills and
factories that exploited us - hesides breaking the windows of their
abandoned buildings as we did as Kids?

TO ME, THI French and class identity were inseparable. AUIT
vears of age T Felt those who didn't fall into this category were the Tucky
ones- the exceptions. | wasn't one of the exceptions. 1 had to work to cat
and the only work was in a dead end job in a non- union mill. Atage 17,
with limited options, | Ieft Maine and followed Route 95 1o Boston where 1
found work on the waterfront loading docks.
... I later joined Vietnam Veterans Against the
War...

AT VARIOUS TIMES F've tried to change or conceal my French
identity. When I was younger I Anglicized my middic and last names.
sidestepped the French language as if it were a trap. 1left the Catholic
church. Tsought Protestant girlfriends. T toyed with the illusion of
someday crossing over to that fabulously free, white and 21 middle-clas
devoid of ethnic identity and lowly wages. The assimilationist’s dream.

I'VE WORKED AS a wage laborer throughout my life - factories,
farm work, logger, construction, tannery worker and other stints of
endurance. The remnants of the French language | retain from my youth
includes "travail” as one of the most often used words. Work was central
1o the material and spiritual well being of my extended family, and no-
where have I seen as strong a work cthic as amongst French Canadians.
An old worker once told me that it takes as much courage to carry a lunch
pail 10 a sweat shop every day 1o feed your Kids, as it does to shoulder a
weapon. There's a strong current of truth in this little parable. 1 know -
I've done both. When ! wasn't working for some big bossman, I was
working for the people. By this, [ mean 1 did community work with
various political organizations, and 1 spent 10 years underground banging
away at the worst manifestations of U.S. imperialism.

... and I spent 10 years underground banging
away at the worst manifestations of U.S.
imperialism...

THE ROOTS OF my political vision and militancy extend deep
into life as a French Canadian worker. However, it was a tour of duty in
Victnam which led me from the provincial to the radical. In Vietnam,
1967, 1 saw inten: ism directed towards the Vietnamese people, which
recalled my own experience with anti- Franco bigots and the white
supremacy I'd encountered in Boston and throughout the military. As 1
saw the culture and poverty of the Vietnamese ridiculed, 1 recalled the

4
intolerant WASP's of my youth. I saw the exploitation of their labor and
the desecration of their lives. And charged with carrying out a frightening
level of violence, were the poor and working class soldiers -
disproportionately Black, Latino, and some of French Canadian
backgrounds.

TLATER JOINED Vietnam Veterans Against the War. When 1
returned stateside I took my new consciousness and became politically
active in Tennessee. | quickly became involved in opposition to the war,
civil rights and a strike by black and white packinghouse workers. My
political activism was a prelude to prison, which is where I found myself a
year after honorable discharge from the army.

MY CONSCIOUSNESS NOR commitment remained at a standstill.
In 1970 I met Sacco and Vanzetti. They appeared to me through the pages
of a book I was reading on the labor movement in the sweltering heat of a
southern prison cell. 1 vividly remember reading Vanzetti's last statement
10 the court before he was sentenced to execution for the crime of being an
immigrant radical:

"If it had not been for these thing 1 might have lived out my
life talking at corners to scorning men.
I'might have die, unmarked; unknown, a failure.
Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never
in our full life could we hope 10 do such work for tolerance, for
justice, for man’s understanding of man as now we do by accident.
Our words, our lives, our pains — nothing!
The taking of our lives - lives of a good shoemaker and poor fish
peddler - all!
That last moment belongs (0 us-
that agony is our triumph.”

... Human rights found a warm reception in my
cell...

HERE WAS THE faltering English I'd heard spoken in and
around the mills now presented in an impassioned and principled defense

5

of immigrant workers. The lives of a "good shoemaker and poor fish
peddler”: Isaw increased clarity the laboring class of which 1am a part. 1
had worked in a mill making shoe heels. 1 had been a farm worker and
worked on the Boston Fish Pier. I'd felt the ethnic prejudice against our
people - the French Canadians. Then there was my imprisonment, so soon
after Vietnam, and related to my political activism. 1 found a kindred
spirit in those who sacrificed before us and with us.

IT WAS IN_ prison that I studied the great political theorists
and revolutions. Human rights found a warm reception in my cell as did
ideologies based on revolationary nationalism and socialism. The life and
thought of Malcolm X was shared with me by his descendents who
occupied the same cell block. T was encouraged by the activities of the
Black Panther Party and ecstatic with the resurgence of the Front de
Liberation du Quebec. When I defied the prison's Jim Crow segregation, [
did so with the conviction that as the only French Canadian prisoner there,
1 would not side with white supremacy against our black brothers.

WHEN I RETURNED to Maine in 1971, it was to various jobs
making concrete blocks, hammering 2x4's, bolting steel, and sweeping
floors. Talso attended the University of Maine, was drug crisis coordinator
at Augusta’s Rap & Rescue, and worked with organizations such as Vietnam
Veterans Against the War and Scar. Again | was among the dispossessed
and least respected.

. never should we resort to racism to
persevere...

WHEN [ REFER to being underground, 1 refer to a period of
activity from late 1974 1o late 1984 when I took my political work away
from the eyes and ecars of the government. During those years I joined
efforts with others in attempting to build a revolutionary resistance
movement. We sought to bring to the attention of the American people the
horrendous crimes being committed by their own government and
transnational corporations. We targeted the worst criminals because they
are the ones who hurt the most people. After my capture | was convicted
of bombing U.S. military facilities, offices of the South African government,

o

and corporations doing business with apartheid. Now [ am one of over one
hundred political prisoners heid in the U.S. gulag.

T WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT the effort of those who nourish
and preserve the French Canadian culture and heritage, including our
language. There are obstacles to be sure. In my current situation, the
authorities have prohibited me from receiving French language
publications such as Le FAROG Forum and Rebelles.

NEVER SHOULD WE resort to racism to persevere. Itis with
anger and sadness I note Quebec's use of the Surete du Quebec 10 attack
the indigenous Mohawk people who are defending their land against
encroachment by non-native land developers.

... assimilation must not translate to complicity
and collaboration...

A SERIOUS CHALLENGE: faced by Franco-Americans is the level
of assimilation we pursue. Too many are seduced by America’s
materialism along with its racist and class arrogance. It is rotten fruit. It's
clear from the recent uprisings in Los Angeles and other cities that all is
not well in Babylon. America has constituted itself into a criminal
enterprise. The magnitude of the crimes is staggering. The U.S. was built
on the theft of Indian lands and decimation of Indian people. Mexican
land was stolen. African sweat and blood constructed a substantial portion
of this country. America's invasion of Vietnam was an attempt to suppress
that nations right to independence. And what horrible atrocities the U.S.
has committed against the peoples of Fl Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile,
Southern Africa, the Philippines and so many others. It's a bloody legacy
that cannot be denied by an arrogant 500 years commemoration of
Columbus and colonization. Franco-American's should actively involve
themselves in the opposition movement to this celebration. Assimilation
carries with it a responsibility of bringing America to task for its worst
abuses. Assimilation must not translate to complicity and collaboration.

1 WAS ASKED to provide testimony as to what being Franco-
American means to me, and why from this perspective | became a

7

militant. It began with simple French songs sung by my mother and
memere, and burnished by the anti-French slurs of bigots. I'm proud of
my blood and pained with an anger that has not subsided. My
accumulated life experiences have left me hungry for something better. [
yearn for my freedom and a future where every child can live to their full
potential without the scourges of poverty, racism and war. 1 have chosen
to fight for that future.

Marion Prison, May, 1992

Raymond Luc Levasseur
8 10376/016

Box 1000, Marion, I1l.
gr0%0

PARDON
MY ANALYSIS

ON DECEMBER 24th, 1992, George Bush bestowed presidential pardcns
on six former henchmen: Caspar Weinburger, ex-War Secretary; Duane Claridge, former
head of covert CIA wars in Latin America; Alan Fiers, closely linked to Central
American death squads; Eliot Abrams, whose Goebbels-like spin on U, Latin
American policy provided cover for the above, and former National Security Advisor
(and Iranscam figure) Robert McFarlane.

ALL OF THESE MEN faced criminal charges in the Iran-Contra scandal.
The charges consisted largely of perjury and witholding information from Congress about
illegal arms sales to Iran and a multi-million dollar arms pipeline to the Contras.

GEORGE BUSH SAYS THAT these men he pardoned are good and
honorable men. True patriots. The reality and moral dilemma is that these men are
killers. They were links in a chain of command that turned parts of Central America into
graveyards. Somehow they find honor in claiming innocence and being unwilling to see
their victims as anything other than ideological pawns, without flesh, without blood.

WE ARE TOLD BY the pundits that few ‘Americans can understand the
complexities of the Iran-Contra scandal. Yet, the media’s focus on the scandal has
omitted the most serious crimes committed by the Reagan-Bush criminal enterprise: War
crimes, and crimes against humanity. The “complexities of the Iran-Contra scandal® are
110 more complex than firing an M-16. And fire it they did . . . Americans are capable of
understanding that a person who supplies a weapon to a murderer s an accessory'to
murder. Supply a multi-million dollar diversion of weapons, ammunition, training, and
other lethal aid to CIA-backed Contras and you bear direct responsibility for what
follows.

IT'S NOT COMPLICATED. The U.S. weapons pipeline enabled the
Contras—offspring of the Somoza dictatorship-to rape, torture, mutilate, and murder
their way into Nicaragua from sanctuaries in Honduras. The CIA/Contras mined
Nicaraguan harbors, bombed oil refineries, and attempted to overthrow a sovereign
government through a pattern of terror. The terror claimed predominantly civilian
victims. Weinburger, et al, should have faced more than probation from théir classmates
on the federal bench. They should have faced an international court of law, holding them
responsible for 30,000 deaths in Nicaragua and bottomless suffering endured by a people
who sought no more from their Revolution than true independence and a better life.

REMEMBER, THE IRAN-CONTRA cover-up pertains only to that time
period in which the Boland Amendment prohibited direct or indirect aid to the contras.
Congress proved more than willing to fund extraordinary amounts of lethal aid to the
contras, as long as they approved it.

NO SUCH COVER-UP WAS NECESSARY regarding U.S. military aid to
the murderous regimes of Guatemala and El Salvador. U.S. weapons, equipment,
training, and advisors flowed through an open pipeline, and with predictable results—
70,000 killed in El Salvador, 100,000 in Guatemala. Part of the pardoned Eliot Abrams’
job was to make crimes against humanity digestible to the American public. Lying to the
public is not a prosecutable offense.

ABRAMS AND HIS PREDECESSORS, in one example, denied the
Salvadoran Army’s massacre of almost 1,000 civilians at E Mazote, Morazén Province,
in December of 1981--a massacre that was documented at the time by human rights
organizations. The documentation established that the Fort Bragg-trained and U.S.-
supplied Atlactl Battalion butchered the people of EI Mazote, lttering their corpses with
M-16 casings. Shortly before Bush issued his pardons, a group of forensic anthropologists
from Argentina was still digging up skeletons from one of El Mazote’s mass graves-37 in
this most recent find, mostly children. There was no need to lie about the U.S. role in EI
Salvador; the Administration boasted of its involvement and complicity. The duplicity of
its propaganda is merely used to camouflage its worst abuses.

BUSH STATED THAT those pardoned were not motivated by greed or

10
personal gain. This is little consolation to the people of Central America who suffered
for these men's blood-lust and quest for power. The narrow focus on a single dimension
of Iran-Contra doesn't account for the parallel devastation that the Reagan-Bush clique
brought to bear on Southern Africa, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Panama, and G:-ruda.
Commander-in-Chief Bush led his own assaults on Iraq and Panama. And whe
finger of U.S. imperialism isn't directly on the trigger, it is pulled by one of its client
states.

BUSH REFERRED TO Weinburger, et al, as true American patriots.
Sunshine patriots is more like it. Suited in seats of power, they designed policies that
others implemented through covert operations and wars. The result was death, while the
quintessential Ugly Americans slumbered in their suburban Washington homes. Once
they were threatened with invéstigations that threatened them with more than a
tarnished image or probation, they began to whine like spoiled children. Fiers whined all
the way into the U.S. Attorney's office and then provided tearful testimony against Clair
George--his former boss at the CIA. Undoubtedly, Bush had a further rat in the pack in
mind when he pardoned the lot for "their conduct relating to the Iran-Contra affair".
Weinburger was scheduled for trial in January.

BUSH AND THOSE HE PARDONED had established themselves as
predators that feed off the misery of others. They flaunted both domestic and
international law while using their powerful positions to fill graveyards.

THE PUBLIC IS FOREVER fed the fiction that there is equal justice
under the law for all. It's in the Pledge of Allegiance. What isn't in the Pledge is that the
USS. has the largest and most racist prison system on Earth, and approximately 150
political prisoners dispersed throughout the Gulag. Just us poor folks in prison, and more
Blacks imprisoned per capita than another U.S. client state--South Africa.

PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE, radicals and revolutionaries, are not
pardoned. They are imprisoned for years on end that often turn into decades. Nor are
we in country club facilties reserved for the few imprisoned miscreants of the ruling
class, and the plague of government snitches. We are chained in the bowels of hell.

CASE IN POINT: Those of us convicted of armed actions against U.S.
military facilities and war profiteers. The intent and purpose of our actions was o draw
the American people’s attention to horrendous crimes being committed by their
government, in their name, against the people of Central America. It was one of the
numerous courses of action necessary to bring the repression and killing to an end.

WE BROUGHT the E Mazote Massacre to the attention of people years
before the current revelations. The actions pointed out that revolutionary Nicaragua
didn't slaughter its own people as U.S. clients in Central America do, so the U.
intervened with its own brand of barbarism. Pointed out also was the Sandinistas’

1

survival and improvement programs for the poor, again distinguishing it from U.S. client
states in the region-programs which the U.S. spared no effort to subvert. To the
American people, clandestine organizations sent the message: What good is conscience
and moral judgment if we lack the will to take strong action to stop war crimes and
crimes against humanity. To know and do nothing is complicity.

BUSH'S STATED REASON FOR THE PARDONS:

1) His criminal associates were "motivated by patriotism". Yet, any political
prisoner or defendant who has stolen a pair of shoes can tell you that courts do not
permit motivation as defense. The denial of a politically-based defense to those who
resist government and corporate crimes are one aspect of criminalizing resistance. In any
event, the intent of channelling weapons to Nicaragua was to increase the body count and
implement US. policy through hired killers.

2) Weinburger, et al, "did not profit from their conduct.” But they did. They
retained government positions throughout the Reagan-Bush years. They secured Third
World lands, resources, and exploitable labor for U.S. banks and multi-nationals—the
capitalist family business. Which directly relates to the third reason:

3) "Each has a record of long and distinguished service to this country.”
Indeed--as racketeers in service to an ongoing criminal enterprise called imperialism.
Lucrative careers preceded their entry into the Reagan-Bush administration, and the
corporate world awaits their return. As Iran-Contra windbag Oliver North has shown,
550,000 speaker fees await those with the blood of Nicaraguans on their hands.

To know and do nothing is complicity . .

4) “They have already paid a price--in depleted savings, lost careers, and
anguished families." Such crap is often used by convicted felons of the ruling class to
avoid prison sentences, o sentences to the worst prisons. They assert their constitutions
are 100 delicate to be placed next to convicts who have stolen goods, sold drugs, or
wielded guns. They plead fo be spared even the shortest prison sentence because they
shelled out a half a million for the best lawyer that can be bought. They've lost their
government jobs, though private corporations will find ways to parlay their corrupt ways
into profit. The family is embarrassed, not for what they did, but because they got
caught. Not surprisingly, this type of appeal often succeeds because the judges are
classmates. Bourgeois scum. In this case, the boss of bosses provided insurance.

12
BUT IF YOU ARE onc of those juiled during the L.A. uprising, in Rikers
Island for jumping subway turnstiles, or stcaling cars in Newark, you got nothing coming
but heartache. In fact, you should consider yourself lucky you aren't being summarily
executed. To be poor, Black, Latino, jobless, homeless, underpaid or underfed are not
acceptable reasons to stay out of prison. It your ticket in.

THE POLITICAL PRISONERS who've stood out from the profiteers and
careerists through their commitment to fight oppression and their personal sacrifices
have no savings to deplete or careers to be lost. It is our lives that are at stake. Some,
like Angel Rodriguez Cristobal, Ahmed Evans, George Jackson, and Kuwasi Balagoon
have been murdered or killed by medical neglect. Pedro Albizu Campos and Andrés
Figueroa Cordero suffered years of abuse in Federal prison, only to die of their illnesses
shortly after release. Alan Berkman and Sylvia Baraldini fought courageous battles
against cancer under the most debilitating conditions. Numerous former members of the
Black Panther Party have been imprisoned for 18, 20, 22 years. Mumia Abu Jamal faces
execution by the state of Pennsylvania

'WE MUST NOT LOSE SIGHT of the real death-dealing crimes of
Reagan-Bush-Weinberger et al. And neither should the lives and freedom of political
prisoners be denied.

THE PUNDITS SAY there’s nothing that can be done about the pardons--
they're enshrined in the Constitution and irreversible. That's what was said about slavery.
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes and crimes against humanity.

WHILE HISTORY’S INDICTMENT continues to build against our
common enemy, a fire needs to be lt to free political prisoners. If the ruling class can
protect its own, we should be able to save lives and gain the frecdom of 150 of our own.
Whether a blanket amnesty (for which there is ample precedent) or an uncompromising
movement to stop the State’s execution of Mumia Abu Jamal, the time is now.

Marion Prison, January, 1992

1Y T/zank God for [people who] have some

life in them and some conscience,
some anguish over others...Gandhi
used to say that those who do nothing
are far more guilty than those who
do violence against tyranny.”’

-Phillip Berrigan, referring
to the OHIO 7.
THE
UPRISING

THE LOS ANGELES uprising isn't about a free lunch or integrated lunch
counters. It's about those whose lives have been diss'd: disinherited, displaced,
discriminated against, and disenfranchised. It's about 500 years of European-exported
genocide. The entire state of California sits on stolen Indian and Mexican land. There is
nothing legitimate about this kind of theft, nor the institutional racism and violent
repression which accompanies it.

THE MOST INTENSE flames of this uprising have burned in
predominantly Black South Central L.A. This community is one of many emanating from
the African Diaspora and its historically developed land base in the Black Belt South.
Today’s resistance draws its lifeblood from the earliest slave rebellions and is embodied
in the descendants of Malcolm X. There is no "middle of the road" after the Middle
Passage.

THERE ARE COMMON threads between the L.A. uprising and the

14

Palestinian Intifada. Both defy overwhelming superior police and military forces. Both
constitute dispossessed nations fighting for basic human rights. And at the heart of their
struggles is the right to national identity and land. The L.A. uprising has broken through
one of oppression’s fundamental realities: its disarming effectiveness at turning its victims
against each other instead of their oppressors. The rising has redirected the rage of its
participants against the moral bankruptcy of capitalism and white supremacy.

AS OF THIS writing, the battleground has claimed S0 lives in four days,
most by police gunfire. In the usual course of events, L.A.'s killing grounds would take
two weeks to claim as many lives. The significant difference is that instead of passively
waiting for death to stalk them, the people went on the offensive. Or what might be
considered a vigorous self-defense, since they were going to die anyway through police
violence, internecine warfare, alcohol and drug poisoning, and social neglect.

THE UPRISING RESULTED in extensive property damage. While there
was some needless destruction, the people’s firebombs were strikingly accurate at rooting
out capitalism’s ghetto infrastructure. For the most part, people avoided damaging
schools, mosques, churches, and housing. Most damaged property was corporate and
absentee-owned. More than one Bank of Amerikka branch was torched into oblivion.
These are the businesses that bleed the community with overpriced staples of life, then
take the money and run. These are the purveyors of unlimited supplies of alcohol. It was
like pouring salt on leeches as the profiteers squirmed in their suburban enclaves.

'WHEN FACED WITH uprising and mass resistance, the government has
historically responded with military intervention. From one decade and century to
another--Watts, East St. Louis, Chicago, New York~the police and military have
combined to exact a fearful death toll. It was during the 1965 Watts rebellion that Daryl
Gates, the Bull Conner of L.A., drew his first blood as a police commander. From Watts,
Black rage swept through Cleveland in '66, and Newark, Detroit, and other cities in 1967.
After returning from Viet Nam, I travelled to Detroit and saw the immense destruction.
In Viet Nam I'd seen extensive bomb damage from the door of a helicopter; in Detroit, I
saw it from the asphalt. Both areas burned in wars for self-determination. The
deployment of federal troops is predictable, but uprisings that trigger deployment
demand attention and demonstrate the potential power of the people.

THIS IS NOT a time for apology and accommodation. If I began writing

15
all the names of those murdered and beaten senseless by the police, I'd be writing until
forever. I could never catch up with the reality. With cach death is 2 killer cop who
walks free, 1 know I've written this before, but it’s something I can't forget. It shouldn't
e forgotten. I will write but two: Philip Pannel, a Black teenager frum Teaneck, New
Jersey, who died from a police officer’s bullet as his hands were raised oves his haad.
And Ralph Canady, a personal friend, who was murdered in cold blood by police in
Baltimore, Maryland. No civil rights inquiries were initiated into these murders. There
rarely are. It took 50 deaths in LA. and the U.S. government's embarrassment in the
court of world opinion to legitimize a federal inquiry into the Rodney King case.

THOUSANDS HAVE BEEN arrested in LA., and the federal and state
governments have formed a special task force to prosecute them. Steal a pair of shoes
and go to jail; rip off the livelihood of a people and you're rewarded with profits and
high office. These prosecutions will be punitive and vindictive. Years after the Watts
rebellion, some of its participants are still in California prisons. Black Nationalist Ahmed
Evans was sentenced to death following the Cleveland uprising. I first met Ralph Canady
after he'd been railroaded to prison in the wake of the 1968 rebellion in Nashville’s
Black community. Colonial rebellions strike fear in the bowels of American capitalism,
and it'l spare no effort to imprison the most rebellious. Still in prison, some for decades,
are those women and men that represent their people’s aspirations to be free: Leonard
Peltier, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Gary Tyler, Alejandrina Torrés, Abdul
Hagg, and many others. As Mandela put it-there’s no easy way to walk to freedom.

... more prisons in a country
already choking with them .

‘THE FEDERAL DEPLOYMENT in L.A. includes elements of the U.S.
Marshall’s Service, who made their notorious mark in history tracking fugitive slaves, the
racist dogs of the Border Patrol, and the Bureau of Prisons. The presence of the latter is
a further indication of what lies in store for the rebellious poor: more prisons in a
country that's already choking with them. The U.S. has more steel cages than any country
on earth, and imprisons more Blacks per capita than South Africa. 1 live in this
compressed nightmare of a gulag. Each year of my imprisonment I've endured the exile
with those from amerikkka’s barrios and ghettos, including South Central and East LA,
There’s no denying this apartheid reality or the necessity o break its chains.

NAT TURNER SAID that the struggle for freedom was not a war for
robbery or to satisfy passions. Opportunists exist everywhere, but most of that unleashed
power of mass resistance did not act with criminal intent. They are pursuing their very
survival. Their intent is to demand respect and gain some measure of control over their

16
lives and community. What criminal intent exists is primarily represented by police
violence and a system which fosters and protects the real criminals: that rotten element
that lives in bourgeois splendor derived from cxploiting and defrauding societies’ most
vulnerable. Their rapacity is exceeded only by their ruthlessness and disregard for the
value of human life. The rule of class and white supremacy ensures that they operate
with impunity.

NO DOUBT THE system will attempt some band-aid application to
problems reflected in the uprising. This has been attempted before, but hasn’t worked.
That’s one of the messages from the streets— government money, with all its bureaucratic
strings, may alleviate some conditions in the short term, but it cannot deal with the basic
causes that underlie a people’s subjugation. There’s only one serious context in which to
discuss money, and that is reparations. Billions of dollars in reparations. Millions of acres
of land in reparations. However, a government and a general population that applauds
the agonizing death of Iraqi children caused by U.S. bombing raids will not seriously
consider reparations simply to quell the impact of S0 deaths and property destruction in
LA

THE SITUATION IS desperate but not
hopeless. To rise from ashes and bondage requires a well-
organized and militant resistance that's willing and prepared
to take it to the limit. For amerikka’s most oppressed, there
is no viable alternative to revolutionary nationalism and
socialism.

THERE WAS WIDESPREAD participation by
Mexicans in the L A. uprising, though the media has
‘manipulated coverage to keep them voiceless. Their
involvement is understandable given the conditions of
survival and the fact the amerika occupies their land. Los
Angeles was forcibly taken from the Mexicans in 1846.

THERE WAS MARGINAL participation by
young whites in L.A., as well as in actions in other cities. This
s cacouraging, but it is not enough. Historically, white people
hav aid claim to privilege based on race. There are

ns, but they're not the

r
White power rules in amerika, as is clearly evident in the presidency, congress, supreme
court, and corporate boardrooms. You can see it in the faces of the swine wearing the
of the LAPD. You see it in celebrations of Columbus. There are those that

ce the racist ideclogy that permeates this country, others are simply compiacent
d with its effects. Both are part of the problem.

17

Vet and broader grouping of

FOR THE PREDOMINANTLY whi

gressives”, there exists 2 heightencd call o action. Where are the millions who

“prog

created a vibrant anti-apartheid movement? Where are all those that provided political
support and material aid o Nicaragua and Fl Salvador? Where are the near million
strong: that attended the recent pro-choice demonstration in Washington? And where in
hell is organized labor? 11°s time for this conspiraey of silence to ¢

FOR POOR AND working-class whites, the choice is clear: collaboration
with a system based on white supremacy, or combatting it. When John Brown was asked
aitt to end slavery. he replied *I act from principle. My abjective is o restore
5" When Malcolm X was asked what whites who care about Black peoples’
struggles could do 10 support them, he replied "Do as John Brown did.” It's time 1o g
mantling the apartheid legacy of slavery. It's time to organize a 20th century
U's way

why he for
human rig

down to d

abolition movement, and to provide aid and assistance  freedom fighters.

eyond the time of no retrn

Marion Prison, May, 1992

FROM 1976 through 1984, m M Johnson Jackson Unit and the
alled for the release of political prisoners and POW's from U.S.

United Freedom Front

prisons. This call, accentuated h the use of explosives, was integrated with other

1. and support for

hrou

issues such as independence for Puerto Rico, an end to aparthe
Amer

liberation moveme

or seven long time activists and

tn 1985, the first of many trials bega

revolutionaries. Collectively known as the Obio 7. the first group trial stemmed from
resistance actions attributed to the UFE, including the hombings of U.S. military
facilities. This trial resulted in numerous convictions. Subsequently, § people were
indicted on Sedition and RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) charges
coming out of SMIJ/UFF uctions. This case resulted in the longest sedition trial in U.S.
history and acquittals for those who remained in the case. | was a defendant in both
cases as was Richard Williams and Thomas Manning,

WEEN the earlier UFF trial and the Sedition case, there was a New
I in which Tom and Richard were tried for the 1981 shooting death of a

state trooper. In very compelling and unequivocal testimony, Tom described how he had
shot the trooper in self-defense after the trooper tried to kill him with his 357 Magnum.
During the court proceedings it was determined that the trooper had fired a minimum of
6 shots; carried an unregistered. uniicensed “drop gun” concealed on his person, and was
previously involved in shooting incidents.

Jersey state tri

J that Richard Wi

liams

TOM testific

s not preseat at the shooting.

AT trial's conelusion, Tom Manning was convicied of felony murder. The
jury failed to reach a verdici on Richard, with the majority for acquittal. This led to a
second trial, a retrial, which hegan S years later on September 30th, 1991, and ended
with Richard’s conviction in December.

A year earlier, December 7-10, 1990, a Special Tribunal on the violation of
the human rights of political prisoners/POW's in U.S. prisons and jails was held in New
York City. This event was convened hy 88 sponsoring and endorsing organizations,
including Freedom Now!. 1 coalition of organizations and individuals pledged to support
political prisoners. Hundreds of activisis attended the event. The Tribunal provided an
apportunity and forum to cxamine the political jons of over one
hundred political prisoncrs. Examination was also given to government claims that these
prisoners are simply terrorists and eriminals

THE Tribunal drew numerous conclusions based on the evidence. Among
these findings: U.S. prisons hold substantial numbers of political prisoner/POW's,
including “white north american opponents of U.S. government policies.” The Tribunal
then issued the following call to actions--"It is of eritical import

nee that the
international human rights community as well as all freedom loving people to bring

19
worldwide attention to the plight of U.S. political prisoners.”

HOW is it that one year after the Tribunal’s findings. the New Jersey trial
of Richard Williams elicited no moral or political support from those who organized,
sponsored, endorsed and atiended this event? Or from the organizations and individuals
affiliated with Freedom Now!? How did circumstances and attitudes evolve to the point
of adding insult to injury by abandoning Richard Williams 10 a relentless attack by the
State?

IT has been my position, shared by some of my comrades, that we do not
distance ourselves politically from actions claimed by the SM11/UFF. For example, we
do not deny bombing the offices of the South African government in 1982, or the
destruction of military facilities. We think they were necessary and righteous actions
designed to draw the attention of the American people to crimes being committed by
their own government

THIS has had repercussions in our ability 10 build support among the
organized Left and others. Many activists consider the SMIJ/UFE actions "dirty” because
they involved the use or threat of violence, including confrontations with the police.
‘These activists won't even consider extending support 1o those who do not establish their

innocence" or repudiate armed resistance. Trying to gain their favor resembles an
appearance before a parole board.

AT his recent trial, Richard Williams maintained his innocence throughout
the circumstantial case against him, yet political and moral support did not materialize.
With the exception of a few individuals who braved the elements and police intimidation,
the Left virtually boycotied the trial. The alternative press, with the exception of the
Canadian Left, did not devote so much as a single column inch (o the trial. Events were
not organized or shared which would draw attention 0 our comrade’s plight. One of the
few bright spots in the midst of this wayward stampede was defense attorney Lynne
Stewart, who put forward 2 valian cffort.

WHY the white out? Despite the rhetoric of our detractors, the issue is not
one of "guilt” or “innocence”. If it were, the courtroom would have heen filled with
supporters from that nearby hotbed of rudicalism, New York City. As it was, the
courtroom was filled with state cops making their own political statement. The real deal
with those that renounce us and retreat from trials and prison battlegrounds is that we

20
are seen as anti-imperialists with guns. Guns were used to defend ourselves; guns to
confront the enemy, guns that speak for our own liberation and provide support to
others. With no apologics.

SELF DEFENSE was clearly established in the New Jersey case. However,
our critics” convoluted logic turns the issue around to a condemnation: What were we
doing with guns to begin with! The soft part of the Left filed a superseding indictment
behind that of the State, implicating us as terrorists and criminals. The guns, our lack of
adherence to a particular party line, our radical ideas (e.g. the liberation of oppressed
nations within the borders of the U.S. Empire) are used by others 1o label the Ohio 7 as
renegade workers unworthy of support.

THERE are those who've just begun to grasp the necessary understanding
and courage to denounce the inherent injustice of 20 year old cases involving our Black
Panther Party and Black Liberation Army comrades, and others. Yet they don’t lift a
finger to help someone on trial now. Anyone who has been chewed up in this so-called
“criminal justice” system will tell you support is most effective in the trial stage.
Convictions are extremely difficult to get reversed, and early support lays the foundation
for protracted support if necessary. A New York judge put it succinetly when he stated
the government has an interest in the finality of judgments. s in bury them alive—

MUCH of the North American Left suffers
from myopia on this issue of political prisoners. It aff
their value judgments. They place our value at nil. They see
no relationship or kindred spirit between

those who function clandestinely or outside the bounds of the Empire’s law, and the
combatants, bombmakers, expropriators, armorers, courtiers, and propagandists of other
anti-imperialist struggles. Struggles represented by the FMLN, the FSLN, Umkhonto we
Sizwe, the PLA of the Philippines, etc. They merit admiration and respect. We get
ostracized and disrespect.

WHEN Mandela toured the U.S. after his release from prison, I watched
with pride as millions turned out to welcome him. Nelson Mandela symbolizes anti
apartheid resistance and the defiant spirit of political prisoners. Most Left organizations
expressed enthusiastic support for Mandela--and aippreciation for his sacrifice on behalf
of others. It was a very special moment when Mandela spoke in Harlem. Adding to its
significance was Mandela sharing the stage and place of honor with Black Panther Party
leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad, and former Puerto Rican Nationalist Prisoners of War.
Liberal and conservative politicians opposed their prescnce on stage. It is then with some

irony that so many Left organizations, year after year, refused to acknowledge the
political persecution of these comrades. Curious, that many didn’t recognize the
connection between the fight against white supremacy in Amerikka. Disturbing, that at
no time prior, during, or after did anyone acknowledge the reality of U.S. political
prisoners in prison for years, and still in prison today, for anti-apartheid actions.

THE consistency with which the Left ignores political prisoners can be
seen through the experiences of soldiers that refused to serve in the Gulf War. These
working class women and men took the risks, bad discharges, and imprisonment. For
their commitment and sacrifice, they received scant support from the various antiwar
groups and coalitions, with the major exceptions of Citizen Soldier, the War Resisters’
League, and the anti-imperialist segment of Viet Nam Veterans Against the War.

EXCEPTIONAL also is the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, and
the singular example of Leonard Peltier (also, the particular effort formed around IRA
prisoner Joe Doherty). They have made progress with integrating the lives of the
prisoners with other community and political issues.

HOWEVER, few prisoners, including ant
organizational support. The demise of Freedom
Now! from competing agendss, personal squabbling, and myriad other self-induced
problems undermined the good intentions and hard work of a few. It dashed the hopes
of scores of political prisoners, long ago forgotten. This is a continuation of a decades-
old legacy which relegates political
prisoners to the status of irritant and minor humanitarian consideration.

imperialist prisoners, receive

THE prisoners want and need outside support. We need it to remain
visible and as a vehicle for activism; as a measure of physical protection and to secure
our freedom. Our lifeline is perilously weak.

il

THE State put a lot of muscle and resources into prosecuting Richard
Williams. Every day, state police ringed the courthouse, patrolled the building and
occupied the courtroom. This was more than a symbolic demonstration—it was a strategy
designed 1o use the power of the State to take a man’s life. The dichotomy was striking:
a frenzied police power bent on exacting their pound of flesh, and the wilted response of
the Left. There was the depth, character, and attitude of each in the context of a political
trial.
NEITHER my comrades nor 1 have asked for awards, promotions, or
pensions. If that's what 1 wanted, 1 would have re-enlisted with the U.S. Army rather
than join with the unconventional forces. Some will say I have an axe to grind.

"My purpose is to stir the conscience
and inflame the passions . .. ."

No doubt. I began to sharpen my axe under the war skies of Viet Nam. 25 years ago. I've
continued to hone its edge as my own life was rubbed raw with oppression. With me, the
political IS personal.

THIS is not a criticism of the entire Left. Most of the Left doesn't even
know we exist. For those who have made a difference in our lives—you know who you
are. Neither s it meant to be a comprehensive analysis. My purpose is to stir the
conscience and inflame the passions; to draw attention to the inherent weakness of
political organizations and movements that cut and run at the first sign of a courtroom
confrontation. ALL progressive and revolutionary movements have their activists and
seditious conspirators. Some of us are imprisoned for our commitment. Do you see us as
part of your community, or as casualties of a war you'd just as soon forget? Do you see
us at all? For after all s said and done, the women and men locked down for their
political beliefs, intent, and actions are the United States’ political prisoners.

UNTIL
ALL ARE

FREES

=

January, 1992

Available from

| PROFANE EXISTENCE - P.0.BOX 8722 |
M MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55408 - US.A. [l

N Unu! A1l Ao Froo Tho Trial Statemant of

Ray Luc Lovassour
Atack Intarnational - $2.85 5
Tha trial statement of American antrimperi. 23
alst prisoner Ray Luc Levassour who ro-
caivod a 45 yoar sentence for conspiring 1o
Sverthrow the U.S. Governmant. A powe.

1) and moving statement

DEAR BETTY

GREETINGS TO YOU on Intemational Women's Day! T was pleased to
receive your leiter and appreciaic the kind words. 1t was very nice of you 1 write. It was also
ng o hear the Berkshire Forum continues on. Every progressive voice is important.

encour

"M SURE THE RESPECTID PANELISTS at the Forum will address a range
of human rights issucs. Through my own life experiences, [ have come 1 place supreme
¢ on human rights and have comn al of my life © the struggle for social
justice. My work has most often tiken the form organizer or combatant. | don’t consider
mysell much of a w

TWOULD, however, ke to take this opportunity 10 share with you some
observations about the control unit prisan at Masion, Hlinois. | have monitored conditions
here for many years and they have monopolized my fife since they arrived, shortly after the
conclusion of the Sedition wial. There’s a story here that necds 1o be told.

MARION IS A CONTROL UNIT PRISON. lis
nhysical brutality, deprivation
there are thousands of p

men is enford

d through
nd psychological tnure. 1 do not overstate the situation and
es of documented evidenee which atiests to the suffering and rights

violations in Marion

CONTROL UNIT POLICIES are based on isolation, separation, and
controlled movement. Since the 1983 guard riot in which hundreds of prisoners were
brutalized, Marion has been “locked down”. We are confined to solitary cells, 22 1/2 a
day. If I stand at the bars of my cell, I can see approximately 50 feet down-range--to
another wall.

THERE EXISTS a total separation of cell blocks. Prisoners in one cell
block have no contact with prisoners in the other area. Puerto Rican patriot Oscar Lopez
Rivera is 200 feet from me but I never see him.

EACH HALF of a cell block has two tiers of cells. But prisoners on one
tier are never let out of their cells with prisoners from the other tier. Our primary
" 10 be let out onto the corridor in front of our cells for 1 1/2 hours with
nothing to avail ourselves of. There is no exercise equipment, no work for the laborer,
nothing to engage the intellect. The maximum number of prisoners allowed out of their
cells at one time is 9, but usually does not exceed 7-8. Weather permitting, we are
allowed outside into a yard, once a week, for 2 hours. The perimeter of Marion makes
the Berlin Wall look like a minor obstacle.

SOCIALIZING among prisoners has
been effectively barred.

INTEGRAL TO MARION'S regimen is
the use of “restraints.” Guards never get near a
prisoner unless separated by a barrier or the prisoner
in restraints, either handcuffed behind the back or
in handcuffs and leg irons. A prisoner does not move
anywhere in this prison unless he is in restraints, even
if the move is 100 fect to the guards’ office or a mere
30 feet to another cell. Here's how it works: Guards
will approach your cell door. You must turn away
from them and back up to the door, extending your
arms behind you and through an opening in the door.
Handeuffs are placed on your wrists. The door is then
opened and a guard immediately grabs you by the
chain links of the handcuffs. (Through the entire
course of the movement, and until you are on the
other side of a barrier, he will not let go.) You back
out of the cell. Your back must always be towards the guard. You are pat searched.
From that moment on, you move and stop on command. The procedure is reversed and
repeated at each destination and upon return to your cell. When you are returned to
your cell, you are frequently pat searched.

25
ALL GUARDS CARRY 3-foot clubs with steel balls on cach end. The
steel allows them to separate your ribs and cause internal injuries without breaking bone.
‘The club-wielding guards are an omnipresent reminder that you will be beaten senseless
unless you go along with the program.

WHEN CLUBS FAIL to do the job, prisoners have been chained to
concrete slabs (for days on end!) to contemplate their rebelliousness. Prisoners have also
been forcibly injected with drugs. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court approved the
forcible use of psychotropic drugs on prisoners without their consent or due process
protection. This merely put a high-level stamp of approval on what has been an ongoing
practice in prisons. While in the segregation unit at MCC/New York I personally
witnessed several prisoners forcibly strapped into their bunks and injected with
tranquilizers.

ADDING TO THE VIOLENCE and humiliation directed towards the
Marion prisoners is the selective use of "anal probes”. This has been likened by prisoners
to anal rape. Guards will attack a prisoner in restraints, remove his clothes, and one of
them will shove their fingers in the prisoner’s anus.

HEALTH CARE is & major grievance of the prisoners, and topping this
category is the toxic water supply from which we are forced to drink. Marion draws its
water from Crab Orehard lake, an area which has one of the most sérious PCB toxic
waste problems in the country. The lake itself has been designated to receive EPA
Superfund cleanup money. In addition to PCB toxins, it has been determined that the
area also contains other hazardous wastes, such as lead and cadmium. At one time, this
lake was the backup source of drinking water for the town of Marion until disclosure of
the contamination led the town to seek an alternative source. Although a class action suit
has been filed on behalf of the prisoners, the bureau of prisons has refused to allow a
lawyer for the prisoners a sample for testing. The men here have reported a variety of
health problems, including rashes and subcutaneous lumps, but are denied health
consultations and treatment. This is one of the many human rights violations which take
place at Marion every day.

NONE OF THE MARION BROTHERS believes the courts imposed a
death sentence on us.

26
IN THE SPRING OF 1989, there was an outbreak of intestinal parasites,
which can be contracted by ingestion of fecally-contaminated water. The bureau of
prisons has said it cannot determine the source of the outbreak.

IN THE FALL OF 1989, over 100 prisoners became violently ill with what
they suspected was food poisoning. Prison medical workers made no attempt to diagnose
or treat the problem.

HEALTH CARE AT MARION is in the same realm as due process for
alleged disciplinary infractions. It exists only for whatever purposes the administration
wants it to serve.

EVERY DAY the Marion Brothers must deal with intense isolation and
the ongoing psychological assaults against us. There is no human touch in marion and
the prison makes no concession to the human spirit. Marion exists to break the will of
prisoners who refuse to grovel at the feet of our self-anointed masters.

MARION IS the only federal prison in the country which does not allow
contact visits. Visitors are separated from prisoners by a plexiglass barrier and must
speak through monitored phone receivers. As long as I am here, I will never be allowed
to touch my children. Just how long you remain in Marion is entirely up to the discretion
of the bureau of prisons. Some men have been here 12 years

WE MUST EAT and defecate in our cells. Unlike other prisons, the cells
here have been stripped of their furnishings. In their place is 2 concrete block on which
has been placed a plastic mattress. It has four iron rings embedded in it to allow the
guards to chain, naked and spreadeagled, those who arouse their ire. Three small
conerete slabs protruding from the wall round out the decor. In a tribute to 20th century
penology, Marion is the only federal prison which installs a small television in each cell.
Tts purpose is to pacify and keep the demons of insanity at bay. The bureau of prisons
doesn't necessarily want to drive the prisoners insane. It wants them to submit.

how much of our living, breathing
humanity will be ground into dust . . .

27

IN KEEPING with the racist nature of the prison system, two-thirds of
Marion prisoners are Third World--Black, Latino, Native American. The overwhelming
majority of the guards are white.

THERE ARE no religious services and the chapel stands idle.

1 SAID there was no work in Marion and for the large majority of us that
is true. However, there is one exception. Before a prisoner can be transferred to another
prison, he must prove he is worthy by some ambiguous standard set down by
administrators. This includes a year's stay in the “pre-transfer” cell block (B unit), in
which you are assigned a production job. What you produce is materiel (wire and cable)
for the United States military.

MARION IS THE MOST maximum security prison in the United States. It
is the government’s disciplinary prison and holds both federal and state prisoners. Since
its inception as a control unit prison, many inside organizers and political prisoners have
been transferred here. I have never been in  federal prison before, yet I was sent to
Marion directly from court following my acquitial of seditious conspiracy. I was sent here
because of my political beliefs, and what the government calls my political associations.
Yet the Department of Justice continues to propagate the lie that only the most serious
of disciplinary violations gets a prisoner transferred to Marion. The bureau of prisons
can at any time and without justifiable cause change a prisoner’s security classification to
cover their transfer to Marion.

MARION HAS AN EVIL REPUTATION. It is used to intimidate tens of
thousands of other prisoners, any of whom could be transferred here at a moment's
notice. The bureau of prisons has deliberately ereated a place of real suffering, which
suffocates both mind and body. It is designed to create prisoners who are the walking
wounded, to strike fear in any or all who would contemplate resistance to the system.

ONE OF THE MANY WARDENS who have served a tour of duty at
Marion publically stated, “the purpose of Marion is to control revolutionary attitudes in
the prison system and society at large.” Recalcitrant prisoners, organizers, rights
advocates, and political prisoners make good test subjects according to Marion policy. It
is our  belief systems that come under attack from Marion’s brainwashing schemes ("to
force aperson o reject old beliefs and accept new ones-by subjecting them to great
mental pressure").

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, IN A DEPARTURE from its usual lack
of interest in the U.S. prison system, has condemned Marion for violating many of the
United Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. The Seventh
Circuit Court of Appeals has described conditions at Marion as "sordid, horrible, and
ghastly.” A Congressional subcommittee has released reports on human rights violations
at Marion. But after all is said, nothing is done to change life at Marion. every day, the

28
assault on our humanity continues.

OUR OPPRESSORS try to justify their policies by categorizing the Marion
Brothers as "the worst of the worst", as if we were just so much human garbage. This
propaganda ploy has been used for as long as any of us can remember. I saw it used
during the Viet Nam War. It was a thinly-veiled cover to justify the government’s own
criminal actions, that they may continue unfettered with their exploitation and atrocities.

UNLIKE THE CAMPAIGN to close the Lexington Control Unit for
Women, the struggle of the Marion Brothers has received only marginal support among
progressive people. Though the U.S. prison population has more than doubled since the
early "70's, with the number of Third World prisoners reaching alarming proportions,
most of the Left ignores the issue. They fail o see prisons and the police as the States’
first line of defense in the ciass war.

‘THE ISSUE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS has long since ceased to be an
important issue in this country. Somehow, those of us imprisoned and mistreated because
of our political commitment, do not merit enough respect from progressives to gain their
support and protection. We are attacked by the government and ignored by those who
should be our natural allies. If such a view continues to propagate-along with control
units themselves--human rights abuses in U.S. prisons and in other aspects of our society
will remain unchallenged on the altar of U.S. exception

BETTY, I recently read @ book by STARHAWK, a witch and healer. She
says: "No matter how strong we become, how many inner demons we conquer, how many
insights we gain, we are ultimately confirming our own isolation unless our journey is
grounded in a relationship with living, breathing human beings."

CONDITIONS AT MARION are calculated to sever the relationships we
have with our loved ones, people from our communities, and political movements.
Amnesty International’s report on Marion stated that policies here are designed to break
the defiant spirit and alter the behavior of prisoners. It goes on to say that we are
continually subjected to sensory and psychological deprivation, and stripped of our
individual identities in a process called “mortification and depersonalization.”

STARHAWK's view is an affirmation of life and belief in human potential.
Marion is a negation of this. Conditions here force us into an intense fight for survival,

29
but how much of our living, breathing humanity will be ground into dust within isolation
cells and by the very struggle it takes to survive these conditions” ‘Time will tell, but at
the moment, the prognosis doesn’t look good.

10376/016
United States Penitentiary
Marion, Illinois 62959

March 8, 1990

1

Hauling Up the Morning |
Izando la Maniana

writings & art by political prisoners |
& prisoners of war in the U.S.

These voices arc our conscience—words of
listen to the essence of 2 reality and 2 longing that b

. and courage. Read them and

A powerfully moving, thought-provoking testament to th 3
mind. Pride, sincerity, openness, and unshakeable revol 2 vical heritage that
‘peopie 2nd beyond as an awakening vehicle. — Juan Sancher

Edited by Tim Blunk,
Raymond Luc Levasseur |
and the editors of Jacobin Books
Introduction by Assata Shakur

Prefatory note by Wiliam Kunstier
avaiable for $15.95 at your local booksiore |
or from Red Sea Press, 15 Industry Court. Trenton. NJ 086

COMRADE
GEORGE

IN AUGUST 1971, I was working a menial job, my hands rough and hewn
from lugging thousands of conerete blocks. | was on parole at the time, endinga 5 to 7
year sentence for selling an undercover cop a few joints. First offence. But since my
return from Viet Nam, I'd been organizing against the war-effectively. That was a far
greater crime than the joints.

ON AUGUST 21st, I heard the news that the brother 1 knew as Comrade
George had been murdered in the prison yard of San Quentin. The first shot from a
guard's rifle had hit George in the leg, and dropped him 1o his knees. The second shot
was put through his skull and killed him. The man I admired most in the world was
dead.

T WAS STILL CONSUMED with grief and rage when, three weeks later,
New York State Police stormed Attica Prison and systematically murdered 29 prisoners
in what became known as the Attica Rebellion and Massacre. Like everywhere else,
most of the prisoners were Black or Latino.

JACKSON was a new breed of political prisoner. At the time of
his death, he had already spent half of his life in prison for a $70 robbery. Imprisoned on
a criminal charge, George proceeded to change his life, and the lives of others. He
became politically conscious, & skilied organizer and member of the Black Panther Party.
He received international acclaim with the publication of his first book Soledad
Brother:The Prison Writings of George Jackson, which contained an introduction by French
author Jean Genet.

SOLEDAD BROTHER became a fundamental writing of Black militancy.
George's writing projected the spirit of Black people who have experienced centuries of
racism, economic exploitation, and violent repression.
THIS BOOK was followed by a ser
armed resistance 10 the systemic violence of the
be funerals, they will be on both sides.

Biood in my Eye, with its focus on
He made it clear that if there are

o ECUTION WARRANT for George came down the moment his

fluence as a leader in the Black Liberation struggle wan felt beyond the confines of his
prison cell. Wherever and whenever Black women and men begin o assert effective
leadership, they become targets of assassination or imprisonment. From the fallen
leaders of skve revolts 1o the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King
Ir., Fred Hampion, and dozens of Black Panthers, this country has repeatedly
demonstrated it will not tolerate a movement that fights for the human rights and
aspirations of Black peaple

Wherever and whenever Black women and men begin to assert effective
leadership, they become targets of assassination or imprisonment. . . .

LISTEN TO THE WORDS of Comrade George: “Born to a premature
I, subsistence-wage worker, odd-job man, the cleaner, the caught, the man
U's me, the colonial victim. Anyone who passed the civil
kill me today. with complete immunity. Pve lived with
repression every moment of my life, a repression so formidable that any movement on
my part can only bring relief, the respite of @ small vietory or the reiease of death. In
every sense of the term, in every sense that's real, Fm a slave to and of property.”

THE WORDS AND PERSPECTIVE are George Jackson's but elearly we
have seen a similar vein in Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela. Mandela has often pointed
10 the role of prisons in South Afri ¢ existence of pofitical prisoners. Tn 1971,
George recognized that certain colonial conditions existed within the borders of the
United States

nc

LISTEN TO THE WORDS of George Jackson: “The hypoerisy of
Amerikan fascism forces it to coneeal its attacks on political offenders by the legal fiction
of conspiracy laws and highly sophisticated frameups. [People] . . . must understand the
true function of prisons. Why do they exist in such large numbers? What is the real
underlying economic motive of erime and the official definitions of types of offenders
and victims?

IN 1990, the United States has more Blacks imprisoned, per capita, than
South Africa. There are also well over 100 political prisoners.

MANDELA POINTS TO TIE
South Africa. George Jackson wrote: “The prin
in Amerika lies in wait inside the Black colony.’

al reservoir of revolutionary potential

GEORGE RECOGNIZED that Black people in the U.S. are subjected to
a form of apartheid. Since 1971, the prison system has more than doubled--satellite
camps 10 the ghettos and projects that exist in most urban areas. One fourth of Black
men in their 20's are in prison, on parole, or probation. People in Harlem have a shorter
life expectancy than the people of impoverished Bangladesh. In New York, AIDS is the
primary cause of death among Black women under 40 the infant mortality rate among
Black babies is nothing short of eriminal; the cold-blooded murders of Black people by
killer cops has replaced the lynch rope.

I HAVE WATCHED with much interest the warm and exuberant
reception extended to Mandela during his recent tour of the country. People say we need
a hero in these difficult times. Mandela s certainly an inspiration-—-a person of great
courage and principle. He told the American people we need to deal with our own
internal affairs and reiterated the ANC's position that they arc opposed o white
supremacy wherever it raises its ugly head. He reminded us of the sacrifices and
commitment of our own Nat Turner, John Brown, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and so many

AND I AM REMINDED of Comrade George who made the supreme

AS IF FORECASTING HIS MURDER at the hunds of the State, George
wrote, with rage, "This monster—the monster they engendered in me will return to
torment its maker, from the grave, the pit, the profoundest pit. Hurl me into the next
existence; the descent into Hell won't turn me . . .. I'm going to charge them reparations
in blood. I'm going to charge them like a maddened, wounded, rogue male elephant, ears
flared, trunk raised, trumpet blaring . . . . War, without terms.”

33

PUBLISHERS LONG AGO ceased 1o print the books of George Jackson,
though many a tattered copy remains in circulation.' There is no profit to be made in
the hopes and aspirations of Black people—-only in their oppression. George propelled
those hopes and aspirations 1o the top of the agenda. He stood as a symbol incarnate of
Black pride and courage.

THE SPIRIT OF GEORGE LIVES on in the fertile legacy of common
people’s history. His blood continues to flow through the veins of young Black people
Tashing out at the chains of colonial subjugation. His life is not lost on those who
organize against lynch mobs from Los Angeles to Bensonhurst. His legacy continues to
torment the oppressor, for as long as conditions of life deteriorate for so many, the
rulmg class and its functionaries will harbor the fear of resistance. Reparations WILL be
paid.

His legacy continues
to torment the oppressor

1 WRITE THIS from a prison cell in the locked-down, chained-up, and
poisoned prison in Marion, lilinois. Concrete blocks are still close at hand. Throughout
its history, as well as today, Marion holds the largest concentration of political prisoners
in the U'S. My cell is 20 miles from George Jackson’s grave in Vernon, lllinois. On this
day 1 reflect on the life of our brother who gave everything he had for the freedom of his
people.

(Script for August 16, 1990 “Inside Kites',
Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War.)

WORT/FM's weekly program by and about U.S.

! since this article was written, Blood in My Eye and
Soledad Brother have been reprinted.

34

FROM BEHIND
THE WIRE:

A View Of The Gulf War

(excerpts from u personal letter)

THE AMERIKAN GULAG is now the largest in the world. The motherfucker of
all prison systems. The United States imprisons more of its citizens than any country on
earth, and more Black people than are taken down by apartheid. When the U.S. isn't
busy supporting apartheid, it’s busy practicing it. A type of re-enslavement. The price of
freedom, says our government, includes over one million children, women and men
imprisoned behind the bars of the amerikan flag. A cost of living increase which
includes the unemployed, homeless, hungry, and sick. We have entered the killing zone
that constitutes crimes against humanity, which is 10 say, a particularly heinous offense
committed during war. The government says, and we damn well know, that war wages
within the borders of Amerika. The poor of Amerika are more endangered of life and
limb than the Amerikan soldier parked in the Persian Gulf. Death bears out this fact.

PRISONERS OF CLASS and conflict; prisoners of oppressed nations and
political prisoners and prisoners of war against colonialism. The Prisoners
Rights Union (Californiz) recently completed a study which concluded that extreme
forms of “discipline", ranging from beatings and assaults of prisoners to sensory
deprivation for prolonged periods are the norm in maximum security prisons across the
U.S. The norm in Amerika is to subject prisoners to neglect, abuse, and the longest
sentences in the world (Amerika has a penchant for records). Flagship Marion is

3
symptomatic in that it has been continually locked down since 1983 and cited by
Amnesty International for violating every one of the United Nations Standard Minimal
Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.

THINK ABOUT IT - over one million prisoners wailing to return 10 the
army of under and unemployed. That's equivalent to the total number of soldiers on
both sides of the Gulf War. The prisoners are coming home to pay their respects after
years of being abused, assaulted, humiliated, sensory deprived, and worked for criminal
wages. Out of a revolving door through which another million will eventually pass;
tormented with symptoms of PTSD, ready to implode or explode upon impact with the
Amerikan landscape. 1t should be some homecoming.

IF RECIDIVIST STATISTICS mean anything, we know that the large
‘majority will commit further crimes — to survive, to signify, to strike back. We will have
the lumpen and bottomed-out working class at their worst unless we can wake up the
consciousness, triumph human dignity, and develop a base from which we can organize
and seriously kick in survival programs on multiple levels. Survival implies at least an
apprenticeship with the martial arts.

THE LEFT AND 1. The movements and us. The left had a brief fling
with prisoners in this country but it has long since passed. Ironic, given the numbers and
composition of the prison population. The extended families. It took the Attica uprising
and George Jackson to force their attention span beyond what it was accustomed to.
Today there is little meaningful recognition of political prisoners. The perception seems
t0 be that there is no political capital to be had in defending those who have been
captured. Not enough of us to bother with you say? A soccer stadium filled to bursting
is more in line with your world view? By then you'll be looking at your broken finger
‘bones wondering who'll remember you? Workers? Don’t start me to talkin’, I'll tell
everything I know. An academic issue with too many groups whose leadership and
perspective is middle cluss. The poor? "The People” if you like them; lumpen if you
have reservations. My kind of people. But it's a hard row to hoe when you don't have a
pot to in. But we do get lots of ink in the literature. Soldiers? Ah yes - the
proletariat armed. Serious weaponry. Lots of recent emphasis on organizing GI's - a
necessary component of anti-war and anti-imperialist organizing. Butl where was the
effort before the deployment to the Gulf? It's been playing catch-up with a blitzkrieg.
‘There have been some laudable efforts but much of it came from a defensive posture or
opportunistic design, with some anti-war formations wrapped in their own version of
yellow ribbons.

36
THERE WAS an organizational rep who asked my opinion on the Gulf
War, from the perspective of a Viet Nam veteran, though not from the perspective of a
soldier still at war. Understandable request, but a real piece of irony none the less. |
spent twelve months in the Viet Nam combat zone. I spent 120 months fighting from
clandestinity right here in the heart of the beast. Yet my Viet Nam service draws more
interest, as it often did in past media interviews. Why is that? The government indicted
me for sedition covering the years 1974-1984 stating "...it was further part of the
conspiracy that the defendants did state in a communiqué that as a matter of
revolutionary principal and strategy, ‘we must expose and attack military contractors like
Honeywell [among other misdeeds, a producer and peddler of cluster bombs]...we must
continue 1o attack U.S. imperialism, its military, and its war producers.” That defendants
requested, encouraged, incited, and asked other persons, known and unknown to them,
to commit acts of sabotage and armed actions.”

ASK ME about war profiteers and white collar mercenaries out there
pimping for the government, and why | advocate sweeping away all pests!!

I CONFESS THAT my first act of sahotage was in 1964, at the volatile age
of seventeen. This was several years before I became politically conscious and active. T
learned how to sabotage machinery from French-Canadians in the mill where we worked.
The owners were burning us out with speed-ups and other hazards so we threw the
proverbial shoe, le sabot, into the machines. Temporary relief in a non-union shop.

WHY, THEN, when people think of me soldiering do they think of me as
a young dude in *Nam, 1966-67, rather than a seasoned veteran from a ten year hitch
underground (where in some respects I saw more action than in Viet Nam). Do they see
in my reflection the blood in my eye, the unabashed militancy, the faded pay stubs,
tarnished dreams, physical deprivation, the prison within the prison within the prison?
(During the sedition trial, I showed folks photos of me from the "Nam - steel pot, flak
jacket, M-14, machine gun on standby. That isn't you, they'd respond. Can't be. Is it2).
T'm asked what it was like to fight for the government, rather than my more significant
and meaningful fight against the government. Certainly, every soldier bears witness. In
Viet Nam 1 got a birds-cye view of bomb craters from the shotgun seat next to the door
gunner. I saw a couple of gunships go down, killing 14-15 men, but 1 see broken
bodies. 1 saw a few dead and wounded when our convoy hit a mine. I was pulled deep
into the eyes of the Vietnamese people.

BUT TODAY, you want 10 see aerial bombardment, you turn on the sharp
color images of the television. Then listen carefully, very carefully, 10 the survivors. What
Tcan do is give you basic instruction on how to attack war criminals and their
collaborators.

THERE'S BEEN There’s been much timely analysis of the Gulf War and
folks can contemplate it. This war used up more analysis than small arms ammunition.

37
On the plus side there is Noam Chomsky who knows how (o ciigage the enemy with his
pen. Intellectual dynamite. The man's writing smokes. The point is, its heen said,
underlined, underscored, wrung out, and said again. So, asks Philip Berrigan, (1 like this
dude, bro) why the surprise and shock when a declining empire sinks its teeth into the
Third World; when it bleeds humanity to salvage its own existence? We have a thousand
books, social upheavals, wars, and revolutions that map out the imperial strategy. Not to
‘mention what’s been happening in our own suffering and dying communities. The Gulf
War was preceded by the U.S. invasion of Panama. The continuing carnage in EI
Salvador didn't stop because of transgressions in the Gulf. The priorities of imperialism
still weave its web in Southern Africa.

BERRIGAN GOES ON TO ASK - Who is responsible for this war? His
answer - All of us. 1 tend to agree. Let's not begin by looking at the higher echelons
of the military-industrial complex. Everyone who is criticizing begins with the obvious.
Or Irag’s occupation of Kuwait. Again, highly culpable. Lets begin with the troops since
“support the troops” without supporting the war is one of the biggest scams to come out
of this conflict. As bogus as the yellow rain over Laos that the State Department tried
to pass off as Soviet chemicals when in fuct it was the feces of bees. The "support the
troops” scam began to develop a life of its own in the wake of a policy vote by those
spineless spectacles in the U.S. congress.

JUST TO BE CLEAR: 1 am sympathetic with GI's, as | am with vets,
prisoners, workers, and all us poor folk who bear a considerable burden.  After all, 1
share the experience. Working with these people has been the focus of my political
activism. Having served in the U.S. Army (honorably discharged, thank you) and Viet
Nam, I'm well aware of how economic conditions and enticing drumbeats can lead one
to put on a uniform. 1 fully support efforts to organize Gls and to implement efforts
such as your own community sanctuary. [Refers to a broad hased effort to make
Madison, W1 a sanctuary for GI resisters to the Gulf War.] I thought it 100k a good deal
of courage for Jeff Patterson 10 refuse to cross the line on the tarmac in Hawaii and
then go on after jail and discharge to organize against the war. Note, however, the usual
agenda is to ignore Gls outside of a major military conflict.

After all, I share the experience . . .

WHEN I LOOK at the Gulf War I see a complete waste of human life,
civilian and soldier. Once again it's the working class being used 10 kill their own.
Again, Third World people are treated as expendable. During the First World War, Big
il Haywood said there was not a piece of capitalist property that was worth a laborer's
life to defend. A far cry from being "all you can be” in Army green. My sympathy with

38
the soldier wanes when he picks up a rifle or other implement of destruction and

proceeds to kill, maim, and destroy for god and country.

UNQUALIFIED SUPPORT for soldiers is a bundwagon you won't see me
on. They got me once but not again. In a recent Guardian picce, Earl Ofari Hutchinson
makes an interesting observation: "Black troops in the Gulf should not be blamed for
being there. They are victims, too. They are involuntary volunteers, poverty draftees who
now have little choice but to follow orders.” In other articles I've seen more or less the
same analysis applied to poor, working class, Latino, and women soldiers. Obviously,
Hutchinson, et al were not at the My Lai Massacre. A massacre that can be said to be
the legacy of the enslavement of Africans and decimation of Native Americans. The
Amerikan predator. Calley and the others of the Americal Division (the cover-up went
quite high) said they were just following orders. The sort of trench warfare where you
shoot

Shoot civilians and let

“them drop in a ditch . .

civilians and let them drop in a ditch. They, too, said they had little choice but to follow
orders. There’s ALWAYS a choice other than following orders. The Nuremberg
principals prohibit a defense based on "following orders” when charged with criminal acts
committed during war. In fascist E! Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, South Africa, Indonesia,
Israel and elsewhere, soldiers of death purport to be following orders. And from where
are these soldiers recruited? Dig it - in the mother of all hombings, the pilots and
bombardiers were just carrying out orders - in this instance, the nuclear destruction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

CONSIDER THIS: the average age of the GI's in the Gulf was 26. In Viet
Nam it was 20. Almost all have high school diplomas. They are volunteers, well trained,
and part of the highest paid military in the world. If they step out to fight for god, guts,
glory, and the improved GI bill, then they are responsible for their actions. They
certainly will bask in the limelight as long as they have it which, if history continues to
repeat itself, they miay not have for long. Whatéver part of the war machine you're
oiling and operating, you bear some responsibility. Recognition of this is a prerequis
towards disruption aind disengagement/resistance, from within and outside the military
apparatus.

1 REMEMBER the Pentagon demonstrations from years back and the
flowers placed in the muzzles of soldiers’ rifles.  That's cool, there’s room for varied
approaches to reach hearts and minds. | also remember the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee and Black Panther Party posters during the Viet Nam War
Uncle Sam pointing -- "I want YOU, nigger”, “Receive valuable training in the skills of
killing off other oppressed people”, "Die Nigger Die - You can't die fast enough in the
ghettos.” Those who say that soldiers can’t help what they got themselves into have never
had to look down the business end of an M16 or suffered the effects of bombardment
and shelling. Remember the brothers’ testimony at Viet Nam Veterans Against the War
"Winter Soldier” investigation? That was about exposing abuses and stopping a war, not
‘making excuses for participating in it.

IRONIC, IS IT NOT, that political prisoners in Amerika are abandoned by
much of the left that hold us dearly responsible for political/military activities they don't
approve of. Yet now they support the divisions which drive the armada into the middle
east ("support the troops, not the warl").

WHEN HAVE AMERICAN SOLDIERS protected the rights of workers
or oppressed nations? On the contrary. From Detroit and Newark, to Managua (many
times) and Grenada, as occupation forces and strikebreakers, soldiers have acted as
thugs for Wall Street, to paraphrase marine Major General Smedley Butler. Offer them
friendship and refuge, organize them if you can, encourage resistance, but in the final
analysis you have to be prepared to bring some of them down.

THIS IS NOT AN ACCUSATION of war crimes against individual soldiers
and armies. A search for war criminals begins with the higher ranking officers, well-
placed politicians, money makers, on down to the murderer hiding in uniform. However,
with all the winning attributes being ascribed to the troops, I figure its also fess up time
for GI Joe and Josephine.

P'VE EXPERIENCED the law of gravity enough to know that shit rolls
down hill. When you pull on the thread. as you peel back layers of insulation and follow
the paper trail, you will come across greater degrees of responsibility and culpability,
until all covered with shit is the war criminal and collaborators.

‘WHEN BOMBS AND MISSILES rained down on Iraq, killing and
wounding thousands of civilians, this hardware bore the fingerprints of military

40

prints of the workers and technicians of the highest paid

fingerprints are on the smoking gon. | mean

personnel Tt al hare

work firee i the warld. When 1
titerally and fguratively

THE IMPERIALISTS then tefl the Tragis. after slaughtering their families,
that they are to bidme ‘the pre niry for the deaths. How convenics
Bush must e eating 10 many Twinkies. like the murderer of Harvey Milk, to proffer
inal condier Problent is. people eat it up. Injustice
1 thie rohes of patriotism )

ient of their e

L sorry-nssed défense of

speeialiy conel when it wraps itselt

FETOOK THE AMERICANS sind the Brits a month or so.10 drop more
homin and explosives thin any equivalent time period in WWIL The bombing of-a
awilian air saist shelter 1 Baghdad drew the most atiention, and distortion. Children
were incinerated atong with theit mothers and clders. They were hit by one or two
Gt 000 I8 bonehe imanafactured by Texas Instriments (when they aren’s making
cateutiiion). 71 stealth” FI17. Prior o the
bambihg, Defense (sic)Secretary Dick Cheney sind-Joint Chiefs chairman General Colin
Powdii <topped by 1 Stex et 10 watograph a pair of 2,000 1b. bombs
T crfminal faw p bumb which identifies the perpetrator.
Aiiag and abett Hous disrespeet for human life quatifies them

) war erimes 1t

exé hombs were adapited for use by the

om in §

ignatu

e Thi
I ander

IN REAL DEAL TERMS, massive
Sirategic hombing of ¢
chemicals <hima, Dresden. Hane
. Tokyu, Ha ater and gri
with many dead conscripts clutching iheir useless rif

r power sitways blows away any
ies. saturation hombing, cluster bombs,
amburg, Coventry, Rouen,

or death olls among civilians, along

eine 1o rules of war

phong, with

There’s more than one way
to kill a kid from a warplane.

THE BOMBARDMENT OF IRAQ has targetted the lifelines of cities-and
towns: neighhorhonds. factories. sehools, transportation, and communication systems.,
fuel. and water sy the bombing has ceased but children continue 10
suffer and dic from the devastarion, particulariy the destruction of water supplies and

e systems. There's more tian ne way 1 Aill @ kid from a warplane

M As L write 1

1 FOUND IT INTERESTING when a USAF general played a video of the
bombing of the Iragi Ministry of "Defense" which he referred to as “my counterpart’.
The Pentagon, to be sure. This made me curious as to what the general’s reaction would
be if the Pentagon were bombed. Would he begin raging about a cowardly criminal
terrorist act? Most certainly he would.

HERE I SIT IN A PRISON CELL, pulling down  life sentence of 45
years for bombing U.S. military facilities where not a person received so much as a
scratch. Facilities of those who are knee deep in the blood of the people of Central
America. Indeed, aggression must stop here! Look at the heavy prison sentences laid
on the Resistance Conspiracy comrades for bombing that millionaires’ club in the Capitol
building - a righteous response to the invasion of Grenada. Tim Blunk and Susan
Rosenberg tortured with a 58 year sentence for the mere possession of explosives.

U.S. WARPLANES have been obliterating courthouses, post offices, and
other government buildings including that of the Ba'ath Party. Lethal and symbolic
bombings. Can you imagine the reaction to a bombing of a dominant party headquarters
in Washington, D.C. any time these parties foment some act of territorial aggression!
‘Thesid have to operate out of bunkers if they took their international law seriously (but__
of course they never did until Kuwait).

FOR NO DISCERNIBLE REASON other than the sheer terror value of
it, USS. planes strafed Jordanian and Sudanese refugees fleeing the destruction of the
cities.  In the most gruesome attack 60 were killed on a couple of buses, including
children who were burned to death. What is the punishment for burning children to
death in an act of war? I recall a case back in Maine that made national headlines when
a man put his infant son in a microwave and hit the switch. He was so despised in
prison they had to place him in protective custody. But for Air Amerika, its business as
usual and quite deliberate, as college-educated pilots press button after button, dropping
bomb after bomb, for which they are decorated for service to their country.

RECALL in the early 70’s when Viet Nam Veterans Against the War had
t0 switch gears and focus on the massive air war and the "electronic battlefield". 1
remember having to work harder at holding people’s attention on a war where the body
bags weren't coming back at such a brisk rate. Frustration, trying to convince people
their government was violating the sanctity of human life by systematically killing so
many Vietnamese. The electronic gadgetry and distant air strikes provided a buffer from
which they could relieve themselves of the bloody stain of amerika’s war crimes. I have
no more sympathy for bomber pilots than do their victims, which is to say, none.

42
WITH EACH WAR the U.S. has engaged in this ¢
civilian casualties, compared to military, has increased. More and more ci
for each soldier that dics. In the U.S ainst Indochina, civilians were
ry deaths may
rerafl.

victims. This war may equal or surpass that. The number of Iragi m

never be known, most of them conseripts, blown to picees by unchallenged

IT IS A THOUSAND WORD PICTURE 10 waich technicians, ground
crews, pilots and hombardiers fondle their explosives and write slogans of bravado on the
bombs. Marx must be rolling over in his grave with this sort of working class disunity.
With background research, we just might find the diversificd holdings of a war contractor
have been cranking out these vile yellow ribbons and plastic flags. They are like ¢
you know, cranking out light fixtures in one city and machine guns in the nest. How
many people pass through Burlington, Vermont or Biddeford, Maine realizing plants in
both communities produce enormous amounts of machine guns? These are not "defense
contractors,” they are merchants of death peddiing their product line, technology, and
skills rather than some rudimentary combat training. I'm reminded of Jack London’s
description of The Scab, which can be adopted hy the war profiteer: a two-legged animal
with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain. a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles.

SOME OF THESE PROFITEERS need 10 end up hefore war crimes
tribunals. As Hitler’s finance minister said at the Nuremberg war erimes trials, "If you
want to prosecute the industrialists who made possible the rearmament of Germany. then
you will end up prosceuting your own industrialists.”  He was referring to U.S.
Corporations that supplied a generous flow of aid and loans 1o the fascists. Included was
General Mators which had a direct pipeline to Germany's war machine. GM is today a
major military contractor. Playing both sides of 4 conflict to make a financial killing is
nothing new, though the Gulf War has served to more elearly illustrate the interlocking
parts.

These are not "defense contractors,"
they are merchants of death . . .

43

DURING THE 1980's, the United Freedom Front and others began to
target war profiteers. With good reason, as their communiques indicate. After bombing
the General Electric offices of the aerospace strategic planning and aircraft design
division, the UFF action and communiqué focussed on GE's production role on the A
37 “counterinsurgency” warplane and 7.62mm minigun. They were and are being used as
you read this against the Salvadoran resistance and in the terror campaign against the
Givilian population. The UFF also attempted to prod the conscience of the industries’
workers, to act to stop the bleeding of other workers and peasants. To do something for
the benefit of humanity.

THE LEVEL OF COLLABORATION remains high, particularly during.
recessionary times and phases of patriotic fervor. The war profiteers pay good money
because war and the constant preparation and prodding for it remains good busines:
Unfortunately, much of the privileged middle class like to tout the idea they are a kindly
and just people; the mythology of the white proletariat. A hard nut to crack, yet
something needs to be done if there is to be resistance on o wider front,

DURING THE COURSE OF THIS WAR I noticed the focus on
Raytheon Corporation. Raytheon's infrastructure is prominent on the high-tech highway
which circles Boston. During the sedition trial the government alleged beaucoup
surveillance notes of Raythcon were seized from one of the houses. "Possession is nine-
tenths of the crime," in this case seditious conspiracy. Fortunately the jury felt 9/10 was
not enough 10 topple the government. IU’s a cakewalk to get to many of these facili
while others involve a much more concerted effort.

UNTIL THE PATRIOT MISSILE was launched most people were
unaware that Raytheon is the nation’s second largest supplier of military electron
Not withstanding the focus on the defensive mode of the Patriot. their weaponry and
technology is lethal and offensive in the extreme. Significantly, Ruytheon is the largest
non-governmental employer in Massachusetts. People plead to get jobs at Raytheon. A
recent letter in Z Magazine from an anti-war employee stated that he had sought to
organize the workers against the war. A little something on the path of least resistance,
but even his modest efforis proved futile. When Bush showed up at the plant to address
the troops, the workers responded with red, white and blue flags provided by Raytheon.
The money’s not just good, it's sweel.

IN UPSTATE NEW YORK, the U.S. arsenal at Watervliet had been
laying off until the violent advent of this thing called New World Order. Layoffs were
cancelled and production resumed on the 120 mm guns for the M-1A1 tank. Local
citizens say that as long as there’s war they'll have work. They point out that the war has
improved morale considerably which had been at a low ebb with layoffs. The entire

s awash in something resembling yellow baby shit. The $12.00 salary can't

n area where manufacturing is dying out and the largest employer (N.Y.
state) is laying off.

44
ACROSS COUNTRY in Minneapolis, workers at Alliant Techsystems
(manufacturers of 25 mm shells for APCS) went on strike. Community sentiment turned
against the strike when the war bey: est. The strike was said to be against the
interests of U.S. troops *and the strikers settled without a concession
being made by management. They returned to an average wage of $12.40.

1 READ an interesting picce in Newsweek entitled, "Should We Kill
Saddam?" "We" has been one of those terribly exploited words. The author of this
article teaches the "law of war" to marine officers at Quantico. His conclusion is that
Saddam s suitable for assassination or death by other violent methods because: 1) he’s
a member of the military within a chain of command, 2) wears 4 uniform with rank
insignia, and 3) carries arms openly. I see the same rationale as being applicable to the
Commander in Chief of U.S. Armed Forces, George Bush, as well as Quayle (the
thinking person's National Guardsman), Cheney, Powell, and others. The CIA don't
often wear camos'but do build incredible killing machines. Bush is the lead man in
every sense of the military term, within a military framework. As for uniform with
insignia, the more recent Protocols to the Geneva Convention (adapting rules of war to
anti-colonial and national liberation struggles) moot this point. Guerrillas seldom wear
epaulets. Besides, a windbreaker with executive logo or a three-piece suit is as much
uniform as you need these days (o carry out acts of barbarism. As for carrying arms
openly, well, openly or concealed, or whether you have a group of thugs carry them
around you, it all comes down to the power and capacity to kill (the FMLN should hang
on to that photo of VP Quayle wielding a shoulder fired missile launcher with
Salvadoran soldiers looking on. Exhibit - war crimes trial - from which the dead of
Central America will speak).

a three-piece suit is as much uniform
as you need these days to carry out
acts of barbarism . . .

THE NEWSWEEK ARTICLE didn't propose a trial or tribunal for Saddam, just
a quick kill. Turning the analogy around is the sort of political thinking that ends up as
evidence at sedition trials.
I THINK MOST OF US realize that Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was wrong from
jump street, as were any abuses committed under occupation. However, it's unfortunate
that the general public's introduction to international law comes about through these
events. It has become easy for the media to manipulate the forest into a tree.

THE PUBLIC is functionally illiterate when it comes to international law, its
applicability, and the role of the United States in thwarting it. One need only examine
the abysmal voting record of the U.S. in the United Nations to see that the U.S. has
frustrated the implementation of international law at every turn (particularly in the
Security Council where it has veto power). The U.S. has vetoed or voted against UN
resolutions that condemn the invasion of Panama; Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the
occupation of Palestine; the condemnation of the U.S. support of contras and other acts
of aggression and economic warfare against Nicaragua (which was also declared unlawful
by the World court); and a whole range of UN initiatives which sought to preserve and
protect human rights, implement nuclear disarmament, put an end to apartheid and U.S.
colonialism in Puerto Rico. And that's just a small sampling.

NOT ONLY does the U.S. block the implementation of international law, it is one
of the most frequent violators of it. Now it demands immediate compliance under
punishment of death.

THE U.S. ROLE IN THE GULF is one of unilateral military action with the
most powerful force in the world. It was intended to present the ultimate obstacle to
peaceful negotiation and resolution of the conflict. The UN resolutions became U.S.
resolutions as politicians travelled the globe stuffing U.S. dollars and other bribes into
the pockets of desperate governments. Thus, it somehow becomes legitimate to wage
high intensity war over Kuwaiti self-determination while the Palestinians are stripped of
their homeland and U.S. storm troopers run roughshod in Panama. That level of
hypocrisy and deceit will bring the chickens home 10 roost.

THERE WILL BE NO post-war crimes tribunal. The rhetoric around war crimes
(e.g. the video performance of U.S. POWS) is intended to appease an acquiescent public
with a quick fix. Nuremberg involves acts which constitute crimes against humanity (such
as apartheid, which the U.S. has supported in all its manifestations for decades); war
crimes (such as the U.S. committed in Viet Nam, Panama, and by proxy in El Salvador);
and crimes against peace (for which the World Court found the U.S. culpable in its
attack against Nicaragua). The U.S. would never tolerate an internationally supervised
war crimes trial that examined the conduct of the victor as well as the vanquished. An
honest application of Nuremberg principles would lead to the indictment of political,
corporate, and military leaders from the highest levels of the U.S. ruling class. There is
10 statute of limitations on war crimes and crimes against humanity.

46

NOTE BUSH'S INTEREST in Amnesty International’s report on human rights
abuses by Iraq. "Must reading says George, clutching the report o his heart. Bush
should keep on reading right through Amnesty’s reports of horrendous human rights
abuses in El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, South Africa, Israel, Indonesia, Turkey, ete. ete.
- all of whom are U.S. client states and allies in counter-insurgency. Turkey receives
enormous U.S. aid while updating the book on torture and repression including
persecution of the Kurds. While Bush clutched Amnesty’s report on Iraq, the first aerial
bombardment began. While the public's eye was diverted, full U.S. military aid was
restored to the fascist regime in El Salvador - January 16th. On January 21st,
government soldiers went into the Salvadoran village of EI Zapote and carried out
another bloodbath, shooting and hacking to death 15 innocents. El Salvador’s non-
governmental Human Rights Commission cites the Salvadoran army for the assassination
of over a thousand civilians in 1991 (another 185 deaths were ascribed o that special
category - government death squads). On January 29th the United States provided the
Salvadoran government with more war planes and helicopter gunships.

COINCIDENTALLY, I received an Amnesty International report on Police
Torture in Chicago, Illinois dated December 1990. That's Chicago, United States of
America.

YOU GOT TO FIGURE there’s some evil doings going down when the favorite
pinup of Gls is a cop. Yes, indeed, Ms. Jacqueline Phillips Guibord, a Provo, Utah
police officer resplendent in Wrangler jeans, badge, and shotgun (no mere prop, it looks
like a Remington Riot 12 gauge). The police - first line of defense in the sand of class
conflict and war. The pigs (you wonder why we call you pigs?) - violent, abusive, and
racist. Seen recently through video eyes in Los Angeles stomping another body. Any
Mexican, Black and poor white folk from L.A. will tell you that police brutality has been
a fact of lfe for them as long as they can remember.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER is little more than a violent announcement that the

ize this

Old-World Order will continue with added gusto. Expect the police to empha
point on the home front.

‘GENERAL H. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, commander of U.S. forces in the
gulf says Amerika is the world’s police officer. Dictator in trouble, oligarchy trembling,
popular forces mobilizing, human rights finding its expression, oil in jeopardy -- call 911
Amerikka and Schwarzkopf will bring in the special weapons and tactics. His daddy

47
responded likewise when he went to the aid of the Shah of Iran, pumping iron into the
notorious Savak, secret police. Indeed, Schwarzkopf's daddy was at one time commander
of the New Jersey State Police. NJSP, who cut down Zayd Shakur and Assata and which
today holds our comrades in captivity. NJSP, those exhibitors of nazi fashion and
paraphernalia, who continue to torment Third World people who make the mistake of
getting into a car in New Jersey. Far afield you say? Perhaps I don't like the po-lease -
but the element of fascism is in their behavior.

THE US. is the world's leading supplier of police and prison hardware.
Supplied are some of the world’s most repressive regimes. The police, prisons, death
squads, paramilitary units, torturers, operating outside the law, or using it, shoving it up
the ass of anyone who gets in the way. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1974 prohibits
U.S. military and police aid or assistance to countries engaged in human rights violations.
The law is virtually ignored while soldiers and police work that side of the street.

NAZI PROPAGANDIST Herman Goering once said, “Naturally the common
people don't want war...but after all it's the leaders of the country who determine the
policy...the people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders...all you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists (etc.) for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”
And so it does. It sucked me into the Viet Nam war 25 years ago. Saddam worked the
crowds with it. Bush has proved to be a master of deceit stroking the 3-card Monte
crowd that was waiting to be taken to the cleaners.

FOR THEIR PART, american citizens have not had direct contact with the
human element of war, such as their counterparts in war-swept cities and countryside.
They don't receive the full impact of the suffering and blood which war brings to bear on
a people. They have not had their schools, hospitals, and factorics bombed or children
turned to ashes before their eyes (an exception - the incineration of MOVE families in
Philadelphia). To americans, other workers and peasants are turned into the enemy, a
subhuman mass molded into copy by Pentagon representatives and a compliant news
media. What does it say for the national character of amerika which condones the
carnage employed against the poor, wherever on this earth imperialism corners them?
When the Ugly American becomes more upset over the price of gasoline and a pound of
coffee than with the rising cost of injustice?

48
THERE 18 NOT a single. valid reason for any poor and working class person to
sacifice their life for this New World Order. No moral authority, nor moral higher
ground from which to claim a soldier dies for humanity and human rights to prosper. No
Justification for the death and maiming of so many civilians,

THE POLLS point 10 overwhelming support for Bush and his war. 1 don’t doubt
the results of these polls, it's obvious a short of mass psyehosis is throbbing, but I've
never heen guestioned by any of these polisters, through all the wars and conflicts.
Never known anyone who has. Must be we don't live in the right neighborhoods. The
wake of war victory and other jingoistic proclivities will make it difficult to organize on
the home front. We have yet 1o feel the full bruni of reaction. For some of us there
may be hell to p

AND HOME COMES THE SOLDIER. Let me <tep further back to my own
return from Viet Nam, December 24, 1967 What's all ihis gruff about Nam vets being
spit on and abused by the people? (Need [eomment on what Fd do with someone
isguided enough 10 spit on me, past or presem!). | know of 1o such incident myself
and view this sort of thing as the exeeption. More common, especially in the carlier
years. was for GI's and assorted macho wpes t vanip o long hairs and other anti-
individuals. 1'm tlking everyihing from petty harassment 1o serious vamping. Some
folks were frightened or put off by Gl There are still folks back in my hometawn who
explain away my political fife 1ot viokent and alienated in Viet Nam. When
VVAW became a significant part of the anti-war movenent. the lines began o blur.
Active duty Gls joined the resistance. Hell man, we rejuvenated the whole movement.
1 anyone was abusing s it was the pigs and our own government

WHEN 1 GOT USED as & doormat after returning from Nam, it was by the
power of the state. During a period of politi ad zoti-war work, | got bashed
in the teeth with their cannabis laws. The imolerance and lack of understanding were
frightening. Then it staried (o further unfold. the blacklisting (man, | coulda’t get a
fucking job!): the vets in prison: the scourge of V.A. hospitals; Agent Orange; Black
veterans without justice: homeless vets (10 the point where today the government itself
admits that a third of homeless men are veterans); PTSD and the spirating problems
Icohol and drug abuse. And political repression, some of which targeted Vietnam
ans Against the War,

AT UFW WATERING HOLES the most patriotic of all veterans looked with
disdain at the young Vietnam vets. Which is as close as | came 10 getting spit on. My
own father, & world war t veteran, his not spoken 1o me sinee 1969 because he felt it
wass traitorous of me to oppose the war and support the Black liberation struggle. As
you say bro, contracts are written in blood. Who are Bush and the multinationals
scheming with today that they'll want to throw young soldiers aainst tomorrow?

49

THIS WAS a relatively short war, about six weeks, but with an assemblage of
immense killing power. The ground war, nothing short of a rout, lasted a matter of
hours. Approximately 100 KiA's among U.S. forces. The marines lost more than double
that in the 83 attack in Beirut, which should speak voluries about the advantages of
unconventional tactics against  superior force. For the Gulf War effort all U.S. soldiers
are 1o receive the National Defense Medal, as we did in Nam. Cheap thrill. Looking
over the casualty figures, I don't see a single KiA among the §2nd Airborne, an entire
division. Yet the worlds civilian populations hang on the brink, knowing full well that
the nuclear threat and chemical/biological bombs were being held by the masters of war.

IN THE MIDDLE EAST, a single spark can start a roaring fire. Bush wailed
about a scorched earth policy, watching those petro-dollars going up in smoke, but not
an iota of support for Palestine which the zionists are trying to burn beyond recognition.
Recall what Began said during the invasion of Lebanon - he will kill ten Lebanese
civilians and five Palestinians if this leads to the elimination of a simple fedayeen.
Shabra, Shatila, Al Akoa, the Intifada, there will be no peace without just This was a
war in which U.S. soldiers were safer and more comfortable
the madness of daily bombing raids and had 1o strupgle for food, water, and medicine.
‘There were casualties in Kuwait, though unclear as 1o how ma

Gls HAD A BETTER rate of survival than had they been home worl
production lines and construction jobs. Bush has stated as much in his regurgitated "war
on crime” legislation, though he chose to emphasize how unsafe the streets are for
returning soldiers. I've seen an earlier House version of this legislation. Be prepared
for a fascist implant with Thornberg riding a wave of repression. The commentators and
pundits are saying the sort of shock therapy utilized in the Gulf is what's needed on the
home front. Consider the following: according 1o figures of the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (a government agency given to downgrading negative figures)
200,000 workers have been killed on the job since 1970, about 20,000 a year. That's 60
dead women, children and men a day. One and a half million permanently disabled.
Since 1970, more than 2 million workers dead from the conditions where they labored.
It's estimated that approximately 250,000 will die in the next 10 rs from asbestos
related illnesses, contracted on the job. The response of the ashestos industry has been
to crawl behind the federal judiciary to avoid paying damages.

ACCORDING TO the World Summit for Children (United Nations) 40,000
children under age S die in developing countries every day: this horror repeats itself. It
is the colonial and imperial legacy, as is Kuwait.

AND WITH ALL THE CONCERN about chemical warfare 1 see the
unforgivable crime of the Butcher of Bhopal (India) - the Union Carbide Corporatior
saturating Indian people with their poison causing over 2,000 deaths and untold suffering.
The UFF claimed responsibility for rearranging Union Carbide laboratories during an

50

after hours visit to their facilities.

AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST VIEW? I think so. although it not always a simple
matter 1o follow all the economic sleight of hand. One outstanding fact, giuttonous
Amerika, with 6% of the world's population consumes more than 60% of the world's oil.
Although Germany and Japan consume most of the Kuwaiti oil, imperial control lies in
the force that Amerikan power brings to bear on the peoples and natural resources of
other nations. You can follow the bloody trail for the bombing of Baghdad, to Palestine,
Southeast Asia, Africa, and before you know it you're at wounded knee, Sand Creek, and
Labor's Untold Story - Bloody Ludiow. The entire capitalist/imperialist enterprise is
built on theft and violence.

THEY CAN TELEVIZE and orchestrate their high tech weaponry, but I still feel
the adage that the revolution will not be televised. Not as long as there exists a flicker
of hope and a will to fight among the oppressed and the salient factor that a five dollar
weapon can take out the most highly trained pilots and a homespun IED (incendiary
explosive device) can render their killing machines useless.

IRAQ’S LOSSES were immense. Specific numbers have not been released but
the human toll - killed in action - could be as high as 50,000 (obliterated by falling
bombs and artillery which resembled some sort of bloodthirsty sport). Many more
wounded. A lot of conscripts died. Someone besides the triggerman bears responsibility
for these soldiers. To place them in a static defense, then watch the supply lines cut and
the relentless bombings was sheer arrogance and stupidity. Makes me think of
Armstrong Custer, with as much disgust. By the time the Iragis were in full retreat,
Schwarzkopf could allow 2 or 3 of their infantry divisions 1o pass deeper into Iraq. He
then made the observation these divisions were insignificant and they posed no threat of
offensive capability. Two or three infantry divisions being considered insignificant! 1t's
telling commentary on conventional military challenges to the techno-beast. Which is
why I go with the War of the Flea and take what can be had from the foco and other
strategies and tactics of People’s war. Formidable weapons when activated through the
heart, initiative, and imagination of the guerilla

AS THE SMOKE CLEARS from the battlefield, the old wounds will remain.
The U.S. will undoubtedly maintain a military presence beyond what it was before the
war. The wretched of the earth are still dispossessed in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The imperialists still dictate the terms of survival through the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank. When that policy falters, they send in the CIA and military
advisors - low intensity. If that stick doesn't work, then in come the army, air force,
navy, and marines - high intensity.

ON THE DOMESTIC BATTLEFIELD there’s no new order that doesn't utilize

51
more repression, racism, and poverty. Bush is proposing to inerease the prison budget by
63%. More prisons. Just as U.S. soldiers wre not figured into the unemployment figures,
neither are the nation’s prisoners. Hell of a way 1o deal with joblessness and the housing
shortage. At the present rate of growth more than half of all americans would be in
prison by the year 2053, Recalculating George Onwell. Advanced capitalism being what
it is, the other half of the citizenry are likely to be working in corrections or other
aspects of the "security” apparatus.

. I WATCH these tendencies because I'm in prison and on line to be sent to the
government’s new master plan, control unit joint in Colorado. The contract to build
phase one has been awarded to an “employée owned" firm. Worker against worker,
again. When will we ever learn. This latest development in 20th century penology will
be a prison where "windows will be non-existent” and prisoners will “never leave their
cells.” Presumably so we can acclimate ourselves 10 a living death.

but we must continue to raise
our voices against this madness .

I'TELL YOU, MY BROTHER, if's a heartache and a half. I make love with
freedom every night, hold to the principles, sing bluesey songs in my head, and reach for
the warmth of my children. I've not lost the vision of why I took up the fight 23 years
ago. Life is hard and the pain can be excruciating, but we must continue to raise our
voices against this madness that destroys the innocence of children. Bureaucratic
socialism was a bust, but socialist ideas can be brought to life. We can build an
alternative to imperial plunder and devastation on the streets of Amerika. 1 believe with
all my heart that the human spirit will prevail and that our struggle is a necessary and
worthy sacrifice.

Keep Hauling Up the Morning.
International Women's Day, 1991
MALCOLM

MANY YEARS AGH

ippened in the seemingly endless diss

Maleolm X. It

Nashville. My Tirst t

this brother, the slave name signified owne
MALCOEM X v
wrished the wea that the Black 1
MALC

denied by for

Black people

oppression often work:

common enemy

FODAY'S

commitment

rRiBt
A comni

T IS WORTH NOTING

(I

tment to respee

ation s shy

NE

was @ Black prisone
encritions of

fro;

to the life and thought of
of Tennessee™s death row in

Jesse X. "White” was his

Mempl
ris family with the name “White.” To
nd he wasn't about being owned any
Malcom X,
108t rator. A revolutionary. A man
His contribution 10 the liberation of
swrable beeause he planted and

1 it lives in the heart: the

war sights, The right to an
red through hirth, sweat, and blood.
crvcer. class, or race must be allowed
 duties. To stand firm and stand
the with foree that which is
1 ink from his duty to
\ A Tost him his life

tions: ih:
of against the
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FEELING THE

CRUNCH

i letter)

(excerpts from a perse

REMEMBER EUGENE DEBS? One of the first socialists 1 ever read. 1
used to quote him in letters from the Tennessee joint® - "while there is a lower class, I
am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison,
T am not free”. 1 don't know if he wrote this before or after his bit in Atlanta, but it
always impressed me. Enough so I named a eat after him

1 DON'T THINK PRISONERS or their struggle needs or should be
romanticized, but what phase have we entered when the liberals/left, including that
highly suspect group "progressives'. make no mention of prisons? They write enough
about police and police repression--check that--ot enough, but more than about prisons,
and then let it die on the vine as if humanity ceases 10 exist after booking. I don’t think
the lack of consciousness problem is so much that predominantly white, middle class
leftist liberals have never experienced prisor a case of they're not being
personally or politically threatened by it. They go on and on about Big Brother, civil
rights violations, suppression of dissent, etc.-hu L "Go" and collect their
$200. They can play monopoly like the rich folks, but without a "Get Out Of Jail Free"
card. That wasn't the case in the past

it's mor

AT THE TURN OF the century through the 20's, radicals, Wobblies,
immigrants, union organizers and pacifists felt the crunch. Communists and unionists in
the 30's. Reds in the 50's. Enough radicals and militants in the 60's and 70°s 10 make

? After Ray returned from Viet Nam, his antiwar activism got
him set up for a pot sale. He spent 3 years in a Tennessee
prison.

54
people think. Blacks—radical and o st fong been held in the revolving door.

And 1|

inos/as, in the st tew decades

NOWHERL DO YOU COME up against the power of the law and naked
foree as it's wielded in prison. A virtual skvocracy as embodied in the 13th amendment
10 the Constitution. We have barely any rigl State is bound 1o respect. If the Left
did have any consciousness about the issue--and some do--they're not likely to act on it
becuuse they luck the strength and resources 1o wage a vigorous struggle.

IN THEIR PUBLICATIONS, leftists often refer to the risk of imprisonment or
bodily harm because of their activities, but | wonder how many would remain active if
they seriously thought their actions carried the risk of imprisonment or bodily harm.
Prisoners often mirror image what is happening in the sireet. With the exception of
issues, the genera! level of political consciousness among prisoner is
Tow. They are ripe for new ideas and alternatives but don't see them. Which is
understandable. given that there are no organized movenients presenting any offerings.
This is & period of near total abandonment for prisoners. Combine that with the
conditions of survival and it tends to breed an unhealthy cynicism.

MANY MARION PRISONERS have been invoived in individuzl and
group acts of resistance over the years. For their efforts they've been subjected 1o
heatings. torture, solitary, more time-the whole 9 yards. They see nothing positive
coming out of any of it except maintaining their integrity while staring down the worst
abuses. They get no support outside, and solidarity is lacking inside. Their hopes hinge
on one more erack at the sireets. One more payday or paybac

a period of total abandonment .

Hell has no fury like that of an enraged ex-conviet. For 5 years now, prisoners have been
sentenced under the new guidelines of mandatory terms with no parole. Young dudes are
coming in with big time. You can’t do time on the installme:
sentences are too sicep, with no parole release. You do more than a couple bi
your eniire life is gone. So the prevailing attitude is that next time why show
Consideration for witnesses or the cops since you're coming hack for 20 to 30 after doing
10 0r 157

THE PREVAILING INFORMATIONAL exchange is based on methods of
criminal operation. So while a totally scammed and unsuspecting soul takes refuge in the
fact that 1.2 million women and men are locked away, the nexi seneration is slipping up

ss