As most of you already know, Mumia was transferred to SCI-Mahanoy in upstate PA. more than a month ago, directly after Phila. prosecutor Seth Williams announced that he wasn t pursuing the death penalty in Mumia s case.  This meant that Mumia s sentence went from death to life in prison without parole.  Since arriving at SCI-Mahanoy, Mumia has been in the hole, on AC (administrative custody) status, solitary confinement, even though there is no valid reason for him to be in the hole.  The conditions are tortuous and much worse than the conditions on death row.  These conditions have been condemned by the United Nations as tortuous.  Since arriving at Mahanoy, Superintendent John Kerestes and his staff have gone from one thing to the next to vent their fury and racism on Mumia.  First they claimed to be waiting on paperwork that Mumia s sentence is a life sentence and not death, but Mahanoy has no death chamber so Mumia would never be sent there if he still had a death sentence.  When people saw right through that, Kerestes said that Mumia has to cut his hair before going into general population, now he s saying that Mumia has to let them take his blood (something Mumia really doesn t want to do) before he can be in general population.  Mumia has been in prison for 30 years so why this sudden demand for his blood now.  It is crystal clear that Kerestes and his staff are doing everything they can to keep Mumia in the hole under these tortuous conditions, and it s all rooted in racism and their fury at all the world-wide attention that stays focused on Mumia, after all these years.  They re furious that their plan to legally kill Mumia ain t working.  They re torturing Mumia for the same reason the Romans tortured Jesus Christ, because he won t go along with the lies of the system and racism.  Prison policy has nothing to do with what they re doing to Mumia and everybody should be clear on this.  We must be vigilant over Mumia, including organizations that can visit him on an official basis.  We must continue to flood Supt. Kerestes with calls and emails.  Mumia is up in serious racist KKK territory and we must have his back.  We ve brought Mumia too far to get lax now.  Remember, the power of the people is a force to be reckoned with when the power of the people stays consistent and united.

International Concerned Family And Friends Of Mumia Abu Jamal and
The Move Organization

HOW TO TAKE ACTION:
Write, Phone, and Email the Secretary of Corrections. Demand that Mumia be transferred to General Population! And demand the shutdown of RHU (Restricted Housing Unit) Torture Blocks!
John Wetzl, Secretary Department of Corrections
2520 Lisburn Road, P.O. Box 598 Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
(717) 975-4928
Email: ra-contactdoc@pa.gov

Write, Phone, and Email the Superintendent:
John Kerestes, Superintendent
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
(570) 773-2158 – Fax: (570) 783-2008

Write, Phone, and Email the Philadelphia DA. Demand that they petition the court to free Mumia, based on suppression of evidence. They have buried evidence and the truth for 30 years. The police corruption and the frame up of Mumia must be exposed.
Seth Williams, DA Philadelphia
Three South Penn Square
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3499
(215) 686-8000
Email: DA_Central@phila.gov

Finally, send Mumia a note or a card:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

Click here for the petition

The Jericho Amnesty Movement (JAM) is in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWS)!  We come to you at a time when the corporations, which run our government, place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality.  As we gather together in solidarity to express opposition to mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We want all the people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world to know that we are your allies.  We acknowledge the reality that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and that upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect our own rights, and those of our neighbors. Corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth. No true liberty is attainable when the process is determined by corporate economic forces.

Those who are imprisoned are locked up because of the same economic forces that fund Wall Street.  For example, there are private prisons and ICE detention centers that are run by companies such as GEO Corporation who are funded by big banks such as Wells Fargo.  There is also a struggle to free people who are incarcerated for their political beliefs and actions and who have resisted this monstrous economic system. And it is the same economic system that locks them up. This is our struggle for u.s.-held Political Prisoners (PPs) and Prisoners of War (POWs) and invites your participation.

OWS has and will continue to have Political Prisoners itself as long as there is a state to repress THE PEOPLE!  OWS has taken the initiative to confront the state head on just as the PPs and internal POWs who fought and continue to fight from captivity the good fight for Indigenous rights, Black Liberation, Puerto Rican independence, Chicano/Mexican people, Hawaiian sovereignty or Earth and Animal Liberation. These revolutionary causes all intersect in confronting state repression and addressing racial and socio-economic inequalities.  Just as today’s bankers and corporate/political elite are committing a grave injustice by turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the grievances of the 99%, the majority of the Amerikkkan body politic did the same thing to those young people who were at the forefront of the popular revolutionary movements of the 60’s, 70’s and subsequently. It is time to right those wrongs.

The Americas have been colonized for the past 500 years. In other words Wall Street itself has already been colonized. This means that the indigenous lands of the Native people also have a first priority.  We decolonize because we know this land is already occupied. We decolonize because communities of color have been on the front lines of the 99% here and globally for centuries.  We decolonize because the system is not broken; it is working exactly the way it was intended. We decolonize because any movement that doesn’t acknowledge this replicates oppression.  International law recognizes people’s right to struggle for decolonization.

10-15-2011 marked the 45th anniversary of the date Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton wrote the first draft of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) 10-Point Program and platform. That program became representative of the aspirations of many revolutionary groups of that era who were fully committed to eradicating the rampant injustices inherent in the bogus Amerikkan capitalist system, as they were dedicated to ushering in a social order of genuine peace and prosperity for all children, women and men transcending all class, cultural, ethnic and racial distinctions. They were driven by a set of standards and values rooted in genuine brotherhood and sisterhood. Likewise, they were motivated by a desire for an equitable distribution of wealth and a fair economic, political and social system; not at all unlike the one envisioned by those who are part of today’s OWS movement. Some lost their lives in that struggle in the u.s. domestic war known as COINTELPRO, such as Fred Hampton.  Others were forced into exile, such as Assata Shakur.  Others have been imprisoned for decades, such as Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez Rivera and Sundiata Acoli.

The role of the police in many of the occupations and related actions has been one is one of brute force, bullying, tasering and jailing.   We have seen them carry out, as ordered, various forms of brutality, political repression and other forms of state sanctioned terrorism.  Although the police are working people, for the state, we must remember that there might be potential allies within the police and intelligence services and probably a good number of them would rather not be doing their jobs.  Perhaps they would rather be farmers, ranchers, or small storeowners.  Moreover, all are not unconscious of the difficult moral and psychological sacrifices they make to carry out their job.  They really are human, despite the uniform that many hide behind. We can only hope that those people will break their own shackles and rid themselves of the galling yoke of capital.  And we must help them do that by defending our own human rights and those of others locked down during previous periods of struggle for equality, justice and human rights!

OWS has rightly refused to tie its movement to one or another demand that the system could try to satisfy while ignoring the fundamental problems that produce such symptoms. However OWS would be justified in raising the demand for freedom of those who have tread the path of resistance and, remain, to this day, unjustifiably imprisoned for pursuing the very same basic human rights that are at the center of the platform of today’s popular movement. We express our deep sense of mutual support and the spirit of mutual aid.

We are our own liberators! Free all Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War!
The Jericho Amnesty Movement 12/16/11

Jericho Co-Chairs
Jihad Abdulmumit richmondjericho@gmail.com
Paulette d’auteil albq.jericho@gmail.com

In 1945, the United Nations was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. Today a new world order is being established in the wake of a heavy sacrifice of African lives – after the shock of thousands of deaths registered in Ivory Coast, with 1,200 inhabitants of Duékoué massacred, and dozens of thousands of casualties in Libya, despite the fact NATO is still insulting our intelligence by claiming that there were no casualties from their bombing campaign, which included 26,323 sorties, 9,658 air strikes, 7,700 bombs and missiles fired by NATO on the Libyan people, with the complicity of the United Nations that was meant to protect them.

The British anti-war organization Stop the War Coalition certified the use by NATO of weapons of mass destruction in Libya through bombs and missiles containing the infamous DU (depleted uranium) in order to kill as many people as possible. Daniele Cardetta in the Italian newspaper Articolo3 reported that up to 60,000 people were killed. Furthermore, the Italian newspaper Nibiru2012 concluded that 60,000 deaths out of the Libyan population of 6 million means 1 percent of the entire population was killed by NATO in Libya. That figure would be equal to almost 3 million American citizens killed by foreign powers using unconventional bombs.

Instead of opening an inquiry into these war crimes, the United Nations looked elsewhere towards Abidjan in search of a so-called evil leader, Ivory Coast President Gbagbo. Given all this, China decided to take action by setting up a new world order. This article will tell you how:

1) The Chinese yuan to replace the U.S. dollar

China cannot set up a new world order without being the most powerful country in the world. There have been several claims in the past suggesting that China was the greatest power in the world. It is true indeed, but what many do not realize is that as long as the USA is able to print its money, the dollar, to serve the whole planet, which is desperately waiting for it to trade, the USA has an unfair financial advantage over any potential challenger to its throne.

And despite its true economic balance, the strategic position of its currency unconditionally seats the USA as the greatest power in the world. The potential perversity of the financial lever has been downplayed by many actors for many years.

But one turning point changed the game, and this was the two crises in Ivory Coast and Libya, where the USA and its European allies pressed the monetary lever to silence their current foes. By abusing international law, they went as far as first to freeze the assets of Ivory Coast and later Libya. They also decided to close down all private European banks operating in Ivory Coast without the agreement of the local government.

It was that new type of war initiated by the West and tested twice in Africa that alerted China, which thereby learned that it could not afford to wait any longer to create and drive the new world order and that in order to achieve that goal, it was necessary to put an end to the hegemony of the U.S. dollar as the reference currency worldwide.

It was during the war against Libya that China managed in June 2011 to convince Russia not to use dollars any more but the Chinese currency instead for their trades. It will be the same with African countries, where, for most, since the assassination of the Libyan leader and the delaying of the common African currency initially due to be released in 2016, the Chinese yuan, which is still not convertible, is gradually becoming the exchange currency with China, which is since 2010 the premiere trading partner of the African continent.

In Latin America, the Chinese initiative is welcomed with open arms by countries that are fed up with the arrogance of their powerful northern neighbour. In Venezuela, for instance, President Hugo Chavez went so far as to claim back all its gold reserves from Western countries that had been stored there for decades.

But the most difficult is yet to come: convincing a country under a U.S. military occupation for more than 60 years to join the new world order that China has decided to set up. The breakthrough eventually happened on Christmas Day this year during the official visit of the Japanese Prime Minster to Beijing, when an agreement was found to bypass the dollar.

This means that the second and the third greatest economic powers, China and Japan, will use the Chinese yuan for their exchanges. Tokyo’s U-turn can be explained by the military weakness of the West highlighted by cacophony and obstacles, especially financial ones, encountered during the Libyan war to topple Muammar Qaddafi, which lasted seven months.

The direct consequence of this event was that Tokyo knew that in the event of a military conflict with China, the USA would not be in a position to help them – hence the need to seek peace now and stay under the umbrella of Beijing. South Korea and India will soon join Brazil as part of this new camp.

This means that the second and the third greatest economic powers, China and Japan, will use the Chinese yuan for their exchanges. South Korea and India will soon join Brazil as part of this new camp.

After the vote of South Africa and Nigeria in favor of a United Nations resolution to trigger a war against an African country, are these two countries trustworthy enough to join the new world order that is being formed around China?

2) The strategic alliance with Russia

One cannot lead the world without a strong military alliance. It has been ages since specialists mentioned a new world governance driven by the USA and China named G2. For the West, it was a trade-off that would have meant it would not miss the waves of change of the 21st century, as it was represented in the so-called G2 by one of its allies, the USA. And so forth.

Because of a stupid and unjust war against Libya, it is all finished. That war has begotten a new G2, but in a new form that nobody would have predicted, a military G2 between Russia and China. Indeed, these two countries, because of what they called unfair aggression against Libya, have decided to reinforce their collaboration in various strategic sectors with the ultimate goal to stop the wicked West.

The celebration of 10 years of friendship between the two countries in Moscow from June 16-18, 2011, was transformed in a war council to launch the new G2. The West, which was hoping to steal African oil reserves starting with the Libyans’ to attempt to enforce a change on Chinese economic policy, will have to review its strategy, as the new G2 has already found another playing ground.

Indeed, Russia will become the major energy supplier to China; this will allow Russia to optimize the risk and the impact of Africa in its supplies and for Russia to be able to overlook its main client, Europe, without which Russia was unable to secure significant financial reserves for its growth. Therefore, the war in Libya has become a bottleneck for Europe.

Indeed, Europe thought that it could use unfair means to control African oil and gas in the long term; however, Europe is now facing blackmail from Russia for its gas supplies, as the tap could be shut down at any moment, especially in the winter. The new agreements with China allow Moscow to sever its gas supplies with the West for months without risking any financial penalty. As the authorities are saying in Moscow, “With the Chinese, we will have enough to overlook the West.”

Furthermore, after the new agreement signed by the Chinese president during that visit, the premiere consumer of energy in the next 20-30 years will become a challenger to the West as it cannot negotiate the price of oil as before; rather, it will have to prepare itself to pay a premium rate for its gas. And after the recent agreements between Russia and Algeria to form a gas “warehouse,” one can expect a surge in the price of gas sent to Europe.

This completely changes the picture, as the West initially went to steal Libyan oil, they have now lost Russian gas, which is 100 times more important. Those Western leaders were very clever indeed! If our Western advisors have been giving the same type of advice to African leaders, one can quickly understand why after 50 years of independence, fed with advice like this, Africa is still lagging behind and so impoverished.

The story kicked off on Nov. 18, 2009, when the Russian news agency Novotni triumphally came up with this headline: “NIET, NIET, NIET!” to describe “No” in Chinese to the American proposition brought forward by Mr. Obama during his first visit to the Middle Kingdom to form together with China the so-called G2 with the goal of collectively tackling governance challenges of the 21st century.

Back then, China noticed that its plan for the world contrasted with USA’s and that it could not see any similarity between the two countries on many hot topics, including the Iran crisis and the problem with North Korea. For Americans, bombs were the best solution to all world problems, whereas China felt that bombs were the evidence of the inability to find sustainable solutions to complex issues.

The Libyan war also gave a clear indication of the new shuffling of the world around the new world order. China and Russia have decided to consult each other regularly and to have a common voice on all important diplomatic matters by always giving the priority to dialogue. The Libyan war has put an end to the way things used to be done in the 20th century, the century of mutual wars of the West, the century of colonial war in Africa and in Asia and imperial wars in South America.

The double veto of China and Russia in the Security Council on the Syrian crisis is yet more proof of the new G2, as its goal is to counteract all Western suicidal plans. The whole world can only applaud this new G2.

3) The Libyan war has forced Russia to buy even more weapons

Just four days after the beginning of the bombing campaign against Libya, it was through Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that the West was informed on March 23, 2011, of the end of the military agreements just recently signed by the USA and Russia. Indeed, Russia was concerned about what it described as a “medieval aggression” by concluding that it was beginning to be a landmark of U.S. foreign policy: Hundreds of bombs were fired in one night on an enemy who just happened to be identified.

The worst was announced by the same Russian prime minister, who said that the USA used aircraft designed for nuclear attacks – even if the weapons were not nuclear – such as the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit that struck civilian targets in Libya, a “friendly” country that abided by all international agreements wanted by Washington to abort all nuclear programs for civilian or military purposes.

This is true cowardice: One who makes sure that you do not have any means to defend yourself before attacking you. And Mr. Putin concluded by saying: “This is why Russia should increase its weapons.” The next day, the Russian defense ministry also announced the end of the military agreement with the USA signed a year ago.

Therefore, for the period 2011-2020, Russia will pump $665 billion into its weaponry to build the following infrastructure: five spacecraft, 21 missile defense systems, 35 bombardiers, 109 attack helicopters and three nuclear submarines that can launch nuclear missiles within 10,000 kilometers.

Therefore, from 2012, the Russian army will be equipped with new intercontinental missiles and will benefit from an investment of $2.6 billion to build advanced types of missiles by 2013. As the Italian journalist Manlio Dinucci confirmed, with the first airstrike on Tripoli launched on March 19, 2011, in the afternoon, the West put an end to the new era of the friendly agreements between Russia and the USA, symbolised on April 8, 2010, in Prague with the signing of the infamous START initiative.

Why is this terrible news for the West? Simply because the West is bankrupt. Any single dollar spent by Washington to buy weapons is actually costing them at least twice the price because it can only borrow from the markets, as there is no guarantee it will be paid back. Interest over the years will surge to the point that $1 will actually cost $4 or $5, whereas the $665 billion spent by Russia will come straight from the trading of gas or oil!

4) An even more isolated Europe

The most stupid decision made by European leaders over the last five years was to turn their back on Russia and force it to look for an alliance with China. Russia clearly showed its disagreement with the war on Libya – it even voiced its concern over the macabre project to assassinate the Libyan leader – but Europe overlooked it and instead decided to go forward with its plans to solve the Libyan crisis, thereby preferring to seal an alliance with its former friend, the USA, which also happens to be its enemy when it comes to financial matters.

From the moment that in order to bring peace in Europe, Russia cancelled the Warsaw Pact and did not veto any plan that would allow any of its strategic countries to join the European Union, the wiser decision made by European leaders would have been to ask the USA to dismiss NATO in order to build a true European army that would include Russia. Instead of doing that, they decided to humble Russia and force it to look to the East for an alliance, where it eventually found China.

This new alliance of these two powers is damaging Europe even more, as it is already a political dwarf. The mistakes of the Libyan war did the rest. Even the mere consolation by the Western media showing a small group of protesters in Moscow will not alter the new chapter of the history that is playing out without Europe.

The other consolation of humiliating an African head of state, Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast – and exposing him to a European circus called the International Criminal Court – will not offer anything to Europe, as it is still surrounded by its obsolete principles and outclassed by a new world whose center has shifted to Asia. It is not an accident that Russia is deploying an important strategy in its Eastern city of Vladivostok.

Conclusion

Should Africa rejoice over this new reshaping of the world? When you are already lying on the ground, you do not fear falling down any more. In the system that was set up at the end of the Second World War, Africa, which was already under European occupation, has never really been set free despite the various projects to cover it up – one of which was the independence granted to African countries after Second World War.

Africa has nothing to lose in this new configuration of the world. One can only hope that the biggest provider of funds to various projects of the African Union, Algeria, will soon join this new circle so that one of us can carry out the will of more than a billion Africans to finally achieve sovereignty and dignity for our continent.

According to our African ancestral beliefs, the dead are not gone. They all become gods. Our dead in Abidjan, Bouaké, Duékoué, Syrte, Tripoli, Bani Walid, Zliten and so forth are gods who will look after us. Their sacrifice is offering to the whole world a new model, a new governance.

The itinerary is still very long, but we have already started the journey. So much pain has accompanied our martyrs in 2011 towards their divinity seats, they give us the lucidity to question ourselves on our future partners and identify our true friends, who just happen to be the people who are building the new world order.

The question arises now as to whether we will be united enough to take part in this new era? Are African youth sufficiently trained and aware to claim a significant part in this new world that is gradually being defined? The year 2011 has come to an end and it has been a dramatic year for Africa, but on a positive note the hated events woke up many Africans who were still in bed and snoring after a long dogmatic rest, as the Western lies were as big as an elephant.

Jean-Paul Pougala is a Cameroonian author and director of the Institute of Geostrategic Studies and professor of sociology and geopolitics at the Geneva School of Diplomacy, Switzerland. He describes his most successful book, “In fuga dalle tenebre [7]” (“Escaping from Darkness”), which is used by about 300 secondary schools in Italy, as “an autobiography of the life of an African on four continents, starting from my childhood in very deep poverty in Africa then breaking the invisible chains of modern slavery through knowledge hunting.” His email is pougala@gmail.com [8] and website is www.pougala.org [9]. Translator Franclin Foping is based in Douala, Cameroon.

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12,000 California prisoners on hunger strike

October 4, 2011
Strikers’ families denied visits, attorneys banned

by Jay Donahue

Oakland – As the renewed prisoner hunger strike enters its second week, the federal receiver’s office released information that at least 12,000 prisoners were participating during the first week. Prisoners are continuing a hunger strike that they temporarily suspended in July. Originating from Security Housing Units (SHUs) and Administrative Segregation Units (Ad-Seg and ASU) across California, prisoners held at Pelican Bay State Prison, Calipatria, Centinela, Corcoran, Ironwood, Kern Valley, North Kern, Salinas Valley, California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, Pleasant Valley State Prison, San Quentin as well as West Valley Detention Center in San Bernadino County are currently participating. Over 3,000 California prisoners held in out-of-state facilities in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma have also refused food.

This corridor of the Pelican Bay SHU is the epicenter of the hunger strike. – Photo: Michael Montgomery, California Watch
“This is the largest prisoner strike of any kind in recent U.S. history,” says Ron Ahnen of California Prison Focus. “The fact that so many prisoners are participating highlights the extreme conditions in all of California’s prisons as well as the historic opportunity the  state has been given to make substantial changes to SHU and Ad-Seg policies.”

Family members of striking SHU prisoners reported that their visits this weekend were denied by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) citing security concerns. “A number of family members received notice that they were not going to be allowed to see their loved ones as long as the strike continues,” says Dolores Canales who has a son in the Pelican Bay SHU. “Denying visits only heightens the isolation that the prisoners and family members experience, especially at this critical time.”

Advocates and lawyers have expressed concern that banning visits, along with other tactics including the possibility of violence on the part of CDCR are being used in attempt to break the strike. “Historically, prison officials have used extreme measures, including physical violence to break strikes,” says Dorsey Nunn, executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and a member of the mediation team working on behalf of the strikers.

“As this peaceful protest continues, it’s essential for lawmakers and the media to monitor the actions of CDCR. The department should not be allowed to use underhanded methods to resolve the strike.” Late last week two of the mediation team’s lawyers were banned from CDCR facilities with the prison administration citing unnamed “security threats.”

The prisoners resumed their hunger strike on Sept. 26 after the CDCR failed to address demands made when prisoners initially went on strike for almost the entire month of July. They have also reported heightened levels of intimidation and retaliation from prison officials since July. Prisoners are demanding changes to long-term solitary confinement, gang validation and debriefing processes and other conditions in the state’s Security Housing Units as well as in other parts of the prison system.

Representatives of the hunger strikers have indicated that this may be a rolling strike, with prisoners coming on and off strike periodically, allowing for the possibility of a protracted struggle. Activists and family members internationally are planning protests in support of the hunger strikers in the coming weeks. For continued updates and more information, visit www.prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com.

California Department of Corrections threatens prison hunger strikers, bans lawyers
by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

In response to a renewed inmate hunger strike to protest conditions in the California prison system, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has taken a hard line, threatening participants with disciplinary action and banning two lawyers who represent the strikers. According to the Contra Costa Times:

“Prison officials are investigating the two lawyers for ‘alleged misconduct,’ said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“Letters faxed Friday to San Francisco lawyer Carol Strickman of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and Berkeley lawyer Marilyn McMahon of California Prison Focus said they were banned from inmate visits as the department investigated whether they had “jeopardized the safety and security” of the prisons.

“Both women have been active advocates for the rights of prisoners at Pelican State Bay Prison, the Crescent City supermax facility at the epicenter of the hunger strike this week and another one in July.

“’It’s under investigation. I really can’t comment any further on that,’ Thornton said.”

California Watch reports that the attorneys were banned under “temporary exclusion orders” that were signed by Corrections Undersecretary Scott Kernan on Sept. 29. The order states that an investigation is underway to determine whether the lawyers “violated the laws and policies governing the safe operations of institutions within the CDCR.”

“The document does not provide details about the allegations. It cites a section from the California Code of Regulations that reads:

“’Committing an act that jeopardizes the life of a person, violates the security of the facility, constitutes a misdemeanor or a felony, or is a reoccurrence of previous violations shall result in a one-year to lifetime exclusion depending on the severity of the offense in  question.’

“Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton confirmed the department had banned ‘some specific attorneys’ from one facility for alleged misconduct. She declined further comment, citing an ongoing investigation.”

Shortly after it banned the lawyers, the CDCR issued a memo to all striking prisoners, informing them that “the department will not condone organized inmate disturbances.” The memo indicated that disciplinary action could be taken against inmates participating in the hunger strike and that those identified as leaders could be placed in isolation in a Security Housing Unit. The memo did not state what might be done to those strike leaders already locked in solitary in the Pelican Bay SHU, where the strike originated.

The current hunger strike, according to inmate organizers, is not a new protest but rather a renewal of the three-week strike that began on July 1. That strike ended after prison officials agreed to some limited concessions, including a review of the policies by which prisoners are placed and held in indefinite solitary confinement in the state’s SHUs. The initial hunger strike also resulted in a hearing in the California Assembly on the treatment of inmates in the SHUs, where thousands of inmates languish in 22- to 23-hour-a-day in isolation in windowless cells, some for 10 years, 20 years or more.

According to a statement issued in mid-September, strike leaders in the Pelican Bay SHU saw little indication or promise of real change:

“As of September 2011, these SHU prisoners continue to be subjected to CDCR’s torturous human rights violations, in spite of the July 2011 peaceful protest via hunger strike, wherein thousands of prisoners of all races and groups united in their effort to bring mainstream exposure and force an end to such barbarous policies and practices. [CDCR has responded with more propaganda, lies and vague double talk promises of change in time].

“SHU prisoners are dissatisfied with CDCR’s response to their formal complaint and five core demands, and therefore will continue to resist via peaceful protest indefinitely, until actual changes are implemented.”

The state is clearly taking an even harder line on this round of the hunger strike. Scott Kernan told California Watch: “Unlike in the first instance where we certainly evaluated their concerns and thought there was some merit to it, this instance appears to be more manipulative, and it certainly has the possibility of being a real disruption to the Department of Corrections and the security of its staff and inmates.”

Last week, the CDCR stated that close to 3,400 inmates at six prisons were participating in the hunger strike, which the department defines as refusing state-issued meals for three consecutive days, according to the most recent data from the corrections department. On Saturday, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity reported that “numbers released by the federal receiver’s office” that monitors health care in California prisons “show that on Sept. 28, nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike, including California  prisoners who are housed in out of state prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma … Prisoners are currently on strike in Pelican Bay State Prison, Calipatria, Centinela, Corcoran, Ironwood State Prison, Kern Valley State Prison, North Kern State Prison, and Salinas Valley State Prison. Throughout the last week prisoners at California Rehabilitation Center in Norco, Pleasant Valley State Prison, San Quentin as well as West Valley Detention Center in San Bernardino County were participating.”

James Ridgeway and Jean Casella are co-editors of Solitary Watch, an innovative public website aimed at bringing the widespread use of solitary confinement and other forms of torture in U.S. prisons out of the shadows and into the light of the public square. A unique collaboration between journalists and law students, Solitary Watch’s mission is to provide the public – as well as practicing attorneys, legal scholars, law enforcement and corrections officers, policymakers, educators, advocates and prisoners – with the first centralized, comprehensive source of information on solitary confinement in the United States. This story first appeared Solitary Watch.

Support the hunger strikers

1) Pressure Gov. Brown to ensure the CDCR implement the changes set forth in the prisoners’ five core demands and that the CDCR cease ALL retaliation on hunger strikers. Call Gov. Jerry Brown at (916) 445-2841.

2) Build and join a massive crowd in Sacramento for the Day of Action Oct. 5, 12-2 p.m. Protest outside CDCR Headquarters, at 1515 S St. in downtown Sacramento. For carpooling and transportation needs from the Bay Area, contact (415) 238-1801 or prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com.

Next Generation

Your work has not been forgotten
Tho they try to hold you down
Undermining our liberation
Thinking when you’re not around…

The work stops there
But they’ve made a grave mistake
If they think that we’ve all fallen
And our strength’s about to break

But your fight to keep us Free
Really  mesmerizes me

So I’ve come to join the Fight
To give My People Freedom Rights

I’ll continue with the Struggle
For My People’s Liberation
Because I’m the Next Generation.

By V. Camilla Hippolyte
and Youths of the All African People’s
Developement & Empowerment Project
of Dunedin FL.

By Vicente Alba Perez – Panama

September 9^th, 1971 is a date many who were alive then will never forget; and those who were not should get to know about. For many it’s the Attica Rebellion and its aftermath. For me, those memories actually go back to, maybe two weeks priors.

One balmy morning in late August, 1971 I got a call at the Bronx Branch office instructing me to report to our Deputy Minister of Information, Richie Perez at our National Headquarters in El Barrio (East Harlem). Once there I was introduced by Richie to Jose Paris or G.I. as we all came to know and love.  G.I. had arrived at headquarters where Richie had been O.D. sometime close to midnight.  As told by Richie, G.I. knocked on the office door, and when asked who he was, responded “Jose G.I. Paris, Young Lords Party, Attica Branch, reporting for duty.

Now, G.I., Richie, sister Olguie Robles and I  made our way to a local Spanish restaurant were we shared breakfast and G.I.’s story. He shared details of the inhumanity being those in the penitentiaries were being subjected to, the fact that some months earlier the inmates at Auburn Correctional facility had decided to rebel, an uprising which had been squelched by massive transfers of the inmate population. He informed us that Attica was about to blow.

After some discussion, a preliminary work plan was developed, and assignments were made. On September 9^th, 1971, the brothers incarcerated in Attica stood tall and demanded their human rights. G.I. and Juan “Fi” Ortiz from the Y.L.P.’s central committee joined the national team of negotiators from outside the prison walls. When the negotiations failed and the negotiating committee was ordered out of the prison, G.I. refused to leave the prison yard. He had decided to die with his brothers. Those brothers were the ones who forced him out, because in their words “if anyone had to leave the yard it was G.I. because he was the only one there that day that could tell the world about the hell they were living in Attica”

We were clear of how little they valued the lives of people of color and people in prison. Attica showed us how worthless were the lives of those at the lower end of their own food chain had. On September 13^th, 10 prison guards and 29 prisoners were massacred during the military assault to retake Attica.

I never got to meet Sam Melville, but knew about him and will never forget him. He never came home. Over the years I met and bonded with other Attica brothers who came home to make their contributions to our communities. Akil Aljundi, Frank “Big Black”Smith, Jose G.I. Paris  worked on Attica until their passing. They worked on many other issues as well. So did George “Che” Nieves, Mariano “Dalu” Gonzales, and Dacajeweiah. They each made their own contributions. We built and we bonded.  Many others who I never had the privileged of meeting also wrote history. They will never be forgotten.

ATTICA IS ALL OF US

George Lester Jackson, known as Comrade, spent 11 years in California prisons, mostly in solitary confinement. After plea-bargaining a $70 gas station robbery in 1960, he got one to life.

“I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me. For the first four years I studied nothing but economics and military ideas,” he wrote. (All the quotations are from Jackson’s two books, “Soledad Brother: the Prison Letters of George Jackson” and “Blood in My Eye,” published posthumously.)

It’s ironic, if not planned, that this 40th anniversary coincides with California prisoners going on hunger strike beginning July 1 and continuing to press time. Comrade had been an effective organizer: In 1962, he organized a strike at Tracy in protest of bad food that united all the prisoners on the tier, regardless of color. The current strike has done the same.

George Jackson, pictured here in San Quentin, wrote two books while behind enemy lines, “Soledad Brother” and “Blood in My Eye,” that remain wildly popular, especially with prisoners.

The prison population of the nation has skyrocketed to a whopping 2.4 million. California has transferred at least 10,000 prisoners out of state to private prisons – no visits − leaving at least 160,000 prisoners overcrowding this very profitable system.

A lucrative product: In 2010, revenues for the top private prison companies – Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group – exceeded $2.9 billion.

California prison guards alone can sock away $300,000 a year with overtime pay according to Forbes 2009 (www.forbes.com) and its chief psychiatrist was paid $838,706 – more than any other state employee in 2010. California’s total budget is now approximately $9.5 billion.

George Jackson flashes his trademark smile, despite the chains.

“Prisons were not institutionalized on such a massive scale by the people. Most people realize that crime is simply the result of a grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth and privilege, a reflection of the present state of property relations. There are no wealthy men on death row, and so few in the general prison population that we can discount them altogether.

“Imprisonment is an aspect of class struggle from the outset. It is the creation of a closed society which attempts to isolate those individuals who disregard the structures of a hypocritical establishment, as well as those who attempt to challenge it on a mass basis.”

Comrade must be turning over in his grave at the news that the NAACP has joined with the Tea Party, the California Prison Guards Union and Newt Gingrich in addressing, in the words of NAACP President Ben Jealous, “the urgent need to reform our nation’s criminal justice system.”

“That will be your main source of opposition – the Black running dog.” Comrade couldn’t have known how right he was: Add Obama!

George and Jonathan Jackson the last time George was home – Photo courtesy It’s About Time, Black Panther Party Archives

“The ‘good white people’ who own things will always give them a few inches in their papers or other media. That’s how fascism works, influencing the masses and institutions through elites.”

“The U.S. has established itself as the mortal enemy of all people’s government, all scientific-socialist mobilization of consciousness everywhere on the globe, all anti-imperialist activity on earth.”

“Despite presence of political parties, there is only one legal politics in the U.S. – the politics of corporativism. The hierarchy commands all state power. There are thousands of ways, however, to attack it and place that power in the hands of the people.”

“[T]he old guard must not fail to understand that circumstances change in time and space, that there can be nothing dogmatic about revolutionary theory. It is to be born out of each popular struggle … [that] must be analyzed historically to discover new ideas.”

Ruchell Magee, George and Jonathan Jackson – Drawing: Kiilu Nyasha

Eavesdropping laws are taking away one of our best defenses against police brutality. A new category of crime: “Felony Terrorist Videotaping of Police Brutality.” At least three states have made it illegal to record any on-duty police officer; conviction can result in 15 years in prison.

The wealth gaps between whites and the colored majority have grown to their widest levels in a quarter-century with ratios roughly 20-to-1for Blacks and 18-to-1for Latinos. Asians lost their top ranking to whites in median household wealth, dropping from $168,103 in 2005 to $78,066 in 2009.

According to the analysis released in July 2011 by the Pew Research Center, the U.S. poverty rate currently stands at 14.3 percent, with the ranks of the working-age poor at the highest level since the ‘60s, and it will likely climb higher when new figures are released in September.

“Freedom means warmth and protection against harsh exposure to the elements. It means food, not garbage. It means truth, harmony, and the social relations that spring from these. It means the best medical attention whenever it’s needed. It means employment that is reasonable, that coincides with the individual necessities and feelings. We will have this freedom even at the cost of total war.”

George Jackson – Painting: Political Prisoner Sundiata Acoli

“Reformism is an old story in Amerika. There have been depressions and socio-economic political crises throughout the period that marked the formation of the present upper-class ruling circle and their controlling elites. But the parties of the left were too committed to reformism to exploit their revolutionary potential.”

“Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform.”

On Aug. 21, 1971, after numerous failed attempts on his life, the state finally succeeded in assassinating Comrade, field marshal of the Black Panther Party. Prison officials claimed Jackson smuggled a gun into San Quentin in a wig in an aborted prison escape. That feat was proven impossible and evidence suggested a setup by prison officials to eliminate Jackson once and for all.

George Jackson’s funeral in Oakland – Photo: Stephen Shames

However, they didn’t count on losing any of their own in the process, namely, three notoriously racist prison guards and two inmate turnkeys. The odds had changed and they went mad. Twenty-six prisoners signed an affidavit written by jailhouse lawyer Ruchell Cinque Magee, detailing the egregious tortures they suffered at the hands of the racist goons.

Subsequently, six prisoners were singled out for what became the longest trial in California history. Wearing 30 pounds of chains in Marin Courthouse, facing charges of murder and assault, Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell, Luis Talamantez, Johnny Spain and Willie Sundiata Tate were tried. Only one, Spain, was convicted of murder. The others were either acquitted or convicted of assault.

Hugo Pinell, the only one of the six remaining in prison, has suffered prolonged isolation in lockups since 1969 − the last 20 years in Pelican Bay’s SHU, a torture chamber if ever there was one. A true warrior, like Comrade, Yogi would put his life on the line to defend his fellow captives against sadistic guard attacks. He has just come off the hunger strike initiated in Pelican Bay.

As Mumia Abu-Jamal stated, “Their sacrifice, their despair, their determination and their blood has painted the month Black for all time.”

This Black August, let us honor our martyred freedom fighter, Comrade George, as well as those who recently joined the ancestors: Donald Cox, Michael Cetawayo Tabor and geronimo ji Jaga. And let us not forget all those who remain captive after many decades: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, Ruchell Cinque Magee − sole survivor of the Marin Courthouse Rebellion of Aug. 7, 1970 − Jalil Muntaqim, Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace, Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez-Rivera and exiled freedom fighter Assata Shakur, to name just a few.

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”

Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran, revolutionary journalist and Bay View columnist, blogs at The Official Website of Kiilu Nyasha, where episodes of her TV talk show, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, along with her essays are posted. She can be reached at Kiilu2@sbcglobal.net.

NYC Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) are hosting a 5k run/walk/bike/roll Sunday, July 31, from 2pm to 7pm, at Prospect Park Brooklyn NY, as part of this annual international event. Running Down the Walls (RDW) is designed to raise much needed funds for the Anarchist Black Cross Federation (ABCF) Warchest and provide legal resources Safe OUTside the System (SOS).

The Warchest was created in 1994. Thru the program, the ABCF sends monthly financial support to PP/POWs who have received insufficient, little or no financial support during their imprisonment.

SOS Collective is an anti-violence program led by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people of color who are devoted to challenge hate and police violence by using community based strategies rather tha relying on the police.

People can particiapate in Running Down the Walls in the following ways:
* Be a runner/cyclist/walker/roller. We are asking people or groups who are running to collect as many sponsors for the run as possible. Remember the money received is going to help imprisoned allies.
*Sponsor a runner/cyclist: This can be done thru a flat donation to the runner cyclist of your choice.
*Sponsor Running Down the Walls: Any amount helps. Contact nycabc@riseup.net OR you can send funds directly to: NYC ABC, P.O. Box 110034, Brooklyn NY 11211.
-END-

MORE than 1,700 prisoners in California, many of whom are in maximum isolation units, have gone on a hunger strike. The protest began with inmates in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison. How they have managed to communicate with each other is anyone’s guess ; but their protest is everyone’s concern. Many of these prisoners have been sent to virtually total isolation and enforced idleness for no crime, not even for alleged infractions of prison regulations. Their isolation, which can last for decades, is often not explicitly disciplinary, and therefore not subject to court oversight. Their treatment is simply a matter of administrative convenience.

Solitary confinement has been transmuted from an occasional tool of discipline into a widespread form of preventive detention. The Supreme Court, over the last two decades, has whittled steadily away at the rights of inmates, surrendering to prison administrators virtually all control over what is done to those held in administrative segregation.Since it is not defined as punishment for a crime, it does not fall under cruel and unusual punishment, the reasoning goes.

As early as 1995, a federal judge, Thelton E. Henderson, conceded that so-called ’supermax’ confinement may well hover on the edge of what is humanly tolerable, though he ruled that it remained acceptable for most inmates. But a psychiatrist and Harvard professor, Stuart Grassian, had found that the environment was ’strikingly toxic,’ resulting in hallucinations, paranoia and delusions. In a ‘60 Minutes’interview, he went so far as to call it ‘far more egregious’ than the death penalty.

Officials at Pelican Bay, in Northern California, claim that those incarcerated in the Security Housing Unit are ‘the worst of the worst.’ Yet often it is the most vulnerable, especially the mentally ill, not the most violent, who end up in indefinite isolation. Placement is haphazard and arbitrary; it focuses on those perceived as troublemakers or simply disliked by correctional officers and, most of all, alleged gang members. Often, the decisions are not based on evidence. And before the inmates are released from the barbarity of 22-hour-a-day isolation into normal prison conditions (themselves shameful) they are often expected to ‘debrief,’ or spill the beans on other gang members.

The moral queasiness that we must feel about this method of extracting information from those in our clutches has all but disappeared these days, thanks to the national shame of  ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ at Guantanamo. Those in isolation can get out by naming names, but if they do so they will likely be killed when returned to a normal facility. To ‘debrief’ is to be targeted for death by gang members, so the prisoners are moved to ‘protective custody’ that is, another form of solitary confinement.

Hunger strikes are the only weapon these prisoners have left. Legal avenues are closed. Communication with the outside world, even with family members, is so restricted as to be meaningless. Possessions; paper and pencil, reading matter, photos of family members, even hand-drawn pictures are removed. (They could contain coded messages between gang members, we are told, or their loss may persuade the inmates to snitch when every other deprivation has failed.)

The poverty of our criminological theorizing is reflected in the official response to the hunger strike. Now refusing to eat is regarded as a threat, too. Authorities are considering force-feeding. It is likely it will be carried out; as it has been, and possibly still continues to be ; at Guantanamo (in possible violation of international law) and in an evil caricature of medical care.

In the summer of 1996, I visited two ’special management units’ at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. A warden boasted that one of the units was the model for Pelican Bay. He led me down the corridors on impeccably clean floors. There was no paint on the concrete walls. Although the corridors had skylights, the cells had no windows. Nothing inside could be moved or removed. The cells contained only a poured concrete bed, a stainless steel mirror, a sink and a toilet. Inmates had no human contact, except when handcuffed or chained to leave their cells or during the often brutal cell extractions. A small place for exercise, called the ‘dog pen’ with cement floors and walls, so high they could see nothing but the sky, provided the only access to fresh air.

Later, an inmate wrote to me, confessing to a shame made palpable and real: ‘If they only touch you when you’re at the end of a chain, then they can’t see you as anything but a dog. Now I can’t see my face in the mirror. I’ve lost my skin. I can’t feel my mind.’

Do we find our ethics by forcing prisoners to live in what Judge Henderson described as the setting of ’senseless suffering’ and ‘wretched misery’? Maybe our reaction to hunger strikes should involve some self-reflection. Not allowing inmates to choose death as an escape from a murderous fate or as a protest against continued degradation depends, as we will see when doctors come to make their judgment calls, on the skilled manipulation of techniques that are indistinguishable from torture. Maybe one way to react to prisoners whose only reaction to bestial treatment is to starve themselves to death might be to do the unthinkable ; to treat them like human beings.

Colin Dayan, a professor of English at Vanderbilt University, is the author of ‘The Law Is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons.’