Working

W
Working
ki to
t Extend
E t d Democracy
D
to
t All 
Volume
Volume
V
V l
3, N
3
Number
b 10
10

October

O
O t b 2014
October
2014

FIVE CORE AND 40 SUPPLEMENTAL
DEMANDS, AND CDCR’S STG-SDP
By Todd Ashker
his memorandum is directed to the
above CDCR Administrators for the
express purpose of respectfully reminding you about unresolved, and/or continued problematic, issues relevant to our
2011-2014 Five Core and 40 Supplemental
demands... and CDCR’s Security Threat
Group-Step Down Program [STG-SDP]...
I am requesting your attention and responsive dialogue-addressing these issues
during the meeting with our outside mediation team- and with Arturo Castellanos,
George Franco, James Williamson, and
myself in the near future... The following
is from me.
We are presently at the one year pointpost “suspension,” of our third peaceful
protest hunger strike action against longterm-indefinite-solitary confinement [i.e.
SHU/Ad-Seg confinement]... and related

T

CONTENTS
Ashker Memo to CDCR ...........1
Editorial ....................................2
They Really Hate Us? ..............3
Daniel McGowan Jailed ...........4
Angola Three ...........................4
Texas Prison Beatings .............5
Letters ......................................6
Inter-communalism .................7
Back Page................................10

conditions therein and damage therefromto prisoners, our outside loved ones, and
society in general, as supported by the public record from the legislative Joint Public
Safety Committee hearings held in Oct.
2013/Feb. 2014...
I believe we have demonstrated out commitment to seeing the reforms sought in
our demands implemented in principle and
spirit, via our peaceful collective actions
and I am reminding you of some relevant
facts...
A) In 2011, CDCR Undersecretary Kernan, and others, admitted that our five
core demands were reasonable-and, many
should have been implemented/provided
[20] years ago-Three years later, many remain unresolved B) It was our (2) peaceful hunger strike
actions-involving thousands of prisoners
statewide, and related international/national
a public exposure and condemnation of
our
o decades of subjection to a form of coercive,
state sanctioned torture... that brought
c
out
o Undersecretary Kernan, and others’,
p
public
admission that CDCR had been over
u
using
the validation process’, and was goi to revise such policies... responsive to
ing
o demands our
C) Our Primary Goal has always been,
a remains, ... Ending Long-term Indefiand
nnite- SHU/Ad-Seg confinement!
Contrary to CDCR Secretary Beard, et al
c
claims,
the STG-SDP is not responsive to
o Primary Demand because it continues a
our
p
policy
of indefinite SHU placement and ret
tention.
(And it’s structured in vague over
r
reaching
terms that will ultimately result in
m
many
more prisoners being subject to ind nite SHU-in large part due to minor indefi

fractions- already being born out by fact of,
more prisoners are in SHU-Ad-Seg todaythan there were prior to start of STG-SDP
pilot program Oct. 2012!)
D) With our primary goal in mind -”Ending Indefinite SHU” policy- any policy/
practice that enables such to continue is
not acceptable, thus, while CDCR has been
somewhat responsive to some of our demands re: SHU/Ad-Seg program/privilege
issues- most of us in SHU for decades already,... remain here indefinitely! The point
is, no matter how you dress it up- spending
24/7 in a small cell for months, years, decades- without normal human contact- especially, the contact of physically touching
one’s outside loved ones... equals a form of
torturous social extermination period!!
E) A major aspect of our collective
movement to meaningfully reform this
prison system in ways beneficial to prisoners, staff, outside loved ones, and society in
general, is related to the system’s rank and
file treating prisoners and our outside loved
ones humanely- as fellow human beings,
with dignity and respect.
I’m not sure how many of you current
administrators were in the loop during our
discussions about
SHU policy change(s) in 2011-2012, ...
but we pointed out that “CDCR leadership
knows how to create a reform policy- intended to be successful or, - one intended to
fail.” ...As summarized below, the current
structure and implementation of the STGSDP appears to be intended to fail- this will
not bode well for CDCR!
Remember this, our 2013 peaceful proAshker Memo .......... Continued on page 8

EDITORIAL 3–10

D

ear Reader, It's in the area of international news that I’ve failed you
most. I have access to the Internet
and other news sources that you as a prisoner do not. One of the things Rock could
have been (if it possessed more people and
money) was a digest of news from around
the world—not news written from just the
viewpoint of the U.S. ruling class. This
would have given you both sides of the story. Yet Mark and I don’t have the money for
a larger issue of this newsletter, nor the volunteers needed to do the work of making
this thing fly each month. For now you’ll
just have to settle for the following mishmash of news, politics, and commentary.
We’ll start our political odyssey with
Robert McNamara, the former Defense
Secretary during the Vietnam War. He
wrote a book in which he stated that the
United States had killed 3.2 million Vietnamese people during that conflict (the
Vietnamese government puts the number
of its citizens killed by the U.S. at a much
higher figure). Why did those millions die
in Vietnam? Let me explain, just briefly.
French imperialism controlled Vietnam
until the outbreak of World War II, when
the wannabe Japanese imperialist then took
it away from them. But the people of Vietnam wanted the country for themselves;
not for Japanese, French, or even American imperialism. So they fought back; they
fought for self-determination. The Vietnamese people battled the Japanese and
drove them out, then fought the French to a
standstill and defeated them. Then in came
the Americans.
Back in the mid-1950s representatives of
President Eisenhower and the Vietnamese
government (led by Ho Chi Min) met in
Geneva. The outcome of that meeting was
to order elections be held to decide the political fate of Vietnam’s future. In preparation for the elections the U.S. conducted a
poll of the Vietnamese population. Surprisingly, the polls demonstrated that Ho Chi
Min would win by a whopping 80 percent
of the votes.
The U.S., those great lovers of democracy, immediately chopped Vietnam in half,
setup a puppet government in the south,
and first with advisers sent in by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, initiated
a ground war in Vietnam—a war against
democracy.
Later came the phony “Gulf of Tonkin”
incident, which stampeded the U.S. con2

gress into passing a resolution authorizing
a substantial escalation of the Vietnam War.
As the Pentagon Papers later proved the lie
behind the Vietnam War, so too did subsequent disclosures prove that the Gulf of
Tonkin incident was fabricated by the U.S.
The American people were also told that
if Vietnam fell, then all of Southeast Asia
would tumble into the hands of communists, like so many “dominos falling” over.
Well, we lost that war and guess what? No
dominos fell. Like the Iraq war, the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese call it the American War) was totally based on lies, naked
aggression, and imperialist greed.
Another bump in the global death rate
was the 1.7 million Iraqis deaths that came
“as a direct result” of the genocidal sanctions imposed on that nation by both the
Bush and Clinton administrations (750,000
children perished because of those sanctions). Then there was the slaughter of
200,000 Iraqis by President Bush in his
1991 Gulf War I. Following that came the
deaths of 1.4 million Iraqis as a result of the
illegal 2003 war of aggression ordered by
then President Bush Jr. It looks to be that
about 3.1 million Iraqis were murdered by
the U.S. (we won’t bother to count the millions of more wounded or displaced by the
other wars the U.S. is waging today).1
Two wars of aggression, both rooted in
lies and deception, costing the combined
lives of some 6.3 million Vietnamese and
Iraqi peoples, and now we are told to prepare for yet a new war? This one against
ISIS (ISIL or Islamic State) exists because
we invaded Iraq and installed a Shiite government that hated Sunnis. It’s called by
any number of names—blowback, the law
of unintended consequences, etc. In the remote event the U.S. is successful in defeating ISIS2, will there be an even worse threat
created by our doing so? Where will it all
end?
The U.S. has now bombed Syria. Days
before the missiles flew Syria’s Deputy
1. Interes ngly enough, I can find the number of occupa on troops killed and the cost of the war in Iraq,
yet I can’t find figures on the number of Afghans who
have so far been killed or wounded during that ongoing war. Or, for that ma er, the number of people
killed by the U.S. in places like Pakistan and Yemen,
Somalia, and a number of na ons in Western and
Northern Africa.
2. People in Syria and Iraq living under ISIS control say
they are red of war, they want peace. Most of these
people tend to see the areas governed by ISIS as stable. Many do not like ISIS, but they hate and fear the
U.S. even more. Yes, we’re well into our third decade
of indiscriminately bombing the people of Iraq.
Want to see what kind of a mess the U.S. and its military flunkies leave in their wake? Just take a quick
glance at Libya today.

Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad, affirmed
that “any attack against the Syrian territory
with the pretext of fighting terrorism …
will be considered an aggression.” Russian
foreign ministry spokesman, Alexander
Lukashevich, also before the attacks, said
“This step, in the absence of a UN Security
Council decision, would be an act of aggression, a gross violation of international
law.” While there are bombs and missiles
exploding over Syria as I write this, at this
point both Britain and Germany and said
they will not be bombing Syria.
Welcome to yet another exciting war in
the Middle East, we can call this one Iraq
War 3.0 (three point zero).
Many years ago, in the editorial page of
some past issue of Prison Focus, I quoted
Osama Bin Laden on the subject of what
it would take to bring peace to the Middle
East. He said they want two things; first,
remove your military bases from our lands,
and, secondly, stop killing us. Would it not
have been so much easier and cheaper to
end it right then and there?
The terrorists got the Twin Towers in
New York and we got Afghanistan. Evensteven, right? Nope. We have to win! A new
war, even as our military is already fighting
on four fronts—a new war that crosses Syria's boundaries as if they didn’t exist. How
many more millions will have to die before
America's leaders come to understand that
the U.S. cannot win in a struggle against a
genuine peoples’ war3?
The down side here is that it is too late
to cut and run; lest we look like a nation
of cowards. So off we go, skipping merrily
down the yellow brick road, just us and our
trusty dogs of war.
The borders of what is called modern
day Iraq were created by the British after
World War One, without any regard for
such things as tribal differences or the ethnic backgrounds of the peoples who lived
there. Fast forward to modern days, when
along comes the all-powerful United States
who destroys Iraq, twice. We bombed them
into the Stone Age and then went in with
our troops. When it was all done we’d
killed over a million Iraqis and sent millions more fleeing for safety into neighboring regions.
Remember, Iraq had done nothing to
the U.S. to provoke these wars—they had
not harmed a single American. While that
3. I am not in any way sugges ng that ISIS struggle
amounts to a people's war, although it may be a naonal libera on struggle led by religious reac onaries who are homophobic, an -communist, and
against women.

Rock!

infamous war crime is now behind us; the
once proud nation of Iraq has been brutally
violated (raped) by the United States, multiple times. Now Obama has already told
us what’s next: It’s going to be even more
war—as he's just demonstrate with his
against Syria.4
How about this? We let Iraq slip back
into the three states it was before all of the
meddling by the various imperialist powers—a Kurdish region, a Shiite area, and a
Sunni section. Just walk away! Yes, it will
be messy. But not as messy as if we had
stayed for yet more years of seemingly unending wars. Fact is, if the U.S. wants to
do more than merely attack the symptoms
it needs to address the disease of Middle
East violence. And to do that you must
first address Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people; the removal our military
bases from Arab lands; quit stealing their
resources (oil); and, yes, stop killing them.
Our founding fathers were opposed to
our even having a standing army, saying it
would lead to…. Well, the mess we have
today. They felt, if need be, an armed and
informed populace would defend the nation from any foreign invaders. The extent
to which we as a nation have strayed from
those early teaching is a measure of how
far America has drifted from her roots.
And let’s not forget how bad those roots
were: You could not vote unless you were
a white land owner (women could not vote
at all), and Blacks were held in conditions
of slavery—the U.S. Constitution did not
even recognized Blacks as full human beings. This was a nation founded by the rich,
for the rich, and it has steadily gone downhill ever since. Today it is the global murderer of millions, while stealing the food
from the mouths of starving children (oil
and other natural resources needed for their
development) in places like Africa, South
America, and Asia. As Dr. Martin Luther
King correctly noted, the United States is
“the greatest purveyor of violence in the
world today.”
It’s way past time to move beyond the
narrow self-interest and selfishness of capitalist modes of thought and being. “War”,
it has been said, “is when the government
tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is
when you decide that for yourself.” What
4. A former counterterrorism specialist and military intelligence officer of the CIA, Philip Giraldi,
says: “The United States is not at war with Syria
[and] to a ack Syrian territory as they’re planning
on doing is an act of war and in fact to do it in this
fashion is a war crime….” h p://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/09/13/378611/us-plan-to-attack-syria-iswar-crime/

Volume 3, Number 10

side are you on? The side of slavery, exploitation, oppression, and war? Or are you
on the side of peace, freedom, justice and
equality for all? It is not the voice in your
head that is going to answer those questions for you, but rather it will be the concrete steps you take to bring about a better
world. It’s not what you say; it’s what you
do that counts. You vote with your feet.
You also vote with your pocketbook. I
am sending this newsletter off to the printer today, October 1st. So far I've received
one $15 check for a subscription and 17
stamps. What this means is that I will be
paying nearly $500 to put this issue of the
newsletter into your hands. Others will
have volunteered their time to fold, seal,
stamp, and label each of the over 600 copies we send out each month. We will not be
able to afford continuing to do that for very
much longer.
Lastly, for those who argue that submitting to the state's behavior modifications
programs is "an individual decision or solution." Please consider the possibility that
there are no individual solutions, only collective ones. We are one! PC, queers, rats,
SNY, and every prisoner who as a set of tits
to swing or a pair of balls to hang. We all
know the source of the problem, and it ain't
other prisoners. ●
Ed Mead

THEY REALLY
HATE US?

M

ost American citizens believe
that no matter what the United
States does abroad, no matter
how bad it may look, no matter what horror
may result, the government of the United
States means well. American leaders may
make mistakes, they may blunder, they
may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they
do mean well. Their intentions are always
honorable, even noble. Of that the great
majority of Americans are certain.
Frances Fitzgerald, in her famous study
of American school textbooks, summarized
the message of these books: “The United
States has been a kind of Salvation Army
to the rest of the world: throughout history
it had done little but dispense benefits to
poor, ignorant, and diseased countries. The
U.S. always acted in a disinterested fashion, always from the highest of motives; it
gave, never took.”
And Americans genuinely wonder why

the rest of the world can’t see how benevolent and self-sacrificing America has been.
Even many people who take part in the
anti-war movement have a hard time shaking off some of this mindset; they march to
spur America – the America they love and
worship and trust – they march to spur this
noble U.S. back onto its path of goodness.
Many of the citizens fall for US government propaganda justifying its military
actions as often and as naively as Charlie
Brown falling for Lucy’s football.
The American people are very much
like the children of a Mafia boss who do
not know what their father does for a living, and don’t want to know, but then wonder why someone just threw a firebomb
through the living room window.
This basic belief in America’s good intentions is often linked to “American exceptionalism.” Let’s look at how exceptional US foreign policy has been. Since
the end of World War 2, the United States
has:
• Attempted to overthrow more than 50
foreign governments, most of which
were democratically-elected.
• Dropped bombs on the people of more
than 30 countries.
• Attempted to assassinate more than 50
foreign leaders.
• Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
• Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
• Led the world in torture; not only the
torture performed directly by Americans
upon foreigners, but providing torture
equipment, torture manuals, lists of people to be tortured, and in-person guidance by American teachers, especially in
Latin America.
This is indeed exceptional. No other
country in all of history comes anywhere
close to such a record. ●
By William Blum
U.S. National Debt Surges $1 Trillion In Just 12 Months:
The U.S. financial position continues to
deteriorate badly in the last 12 months has
increased by over $1 trillion dollars.
http://tinyurl.com/lkuqpam
Number of billionaires hits record
A new survey shows that 155 new billionaires were minted this year, pushing the
total population to a record 2,325 - a 7 percent increase from 2013. http://www.cnbc.
com/id/102007270
3

DANIEL
MCGOWAN,
JAILED FOR
HUFFPOST BLOG,
FILES LAWSUIT
AGAINST BUREAU
OF PRISONS

D

aniel McGowan may have been
the first person thrown in solitary
confinement for writing a HuffPost
blog. Now he’ll be the first person to sue
the Bureau of Prisons over it.
The environmental activist and former
prisoner filed a lawsuit on Wednesday
against the prison system over an April
2013 incident in which U.S. Marshals
threw him in a Brooklyn federal jail -- ironically, for criticizing earlier violations of
his free speech.
“The Bureau of Prisons does not like criticism and their reaction was unsurprisingly
to try and crush someone who stepped out
of line,” McGowan told HuffPost Tuesday
in an email.
After a federal judge labeled him a terrorist in 2007 for arson committed with
the Earth Liberation Front, McGowan
spent years in some of the federal prison
system’s most restrictive prisons, the communication management units (CMUs).
The Bureau of Prisons denies it, but internal prison files strongly suggest McGowan
was placed there because of his continued
outspoken association with the environmental movement.
Serving the final months of his sentence
in a Brooklyn halfway house in 2013, McGowan continued to speak out. He detailed
how he was placed in the isolated special
prisons in a HuffPost blog entry.
Three days after writing that post, the
marshals threw him in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center. He was placed
in solitary and told that he would be soon
taken back to one of the CMUs. Inmates
call them “Little Guantanamo.”
“I had just served over five years in
prison and was acclimating to life on the
outside only to be yanked back to prison,”
McGowan said. “It was terrifying.”
After his lawyers interceded, McGowan
was released the next day back to the halfway house. But in a separate, multi-plaintiff lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons
for how it creates and runs CMUs, Mc4

Gowan’s lawyers argued that the entire
incident was a startling example of their
larger claim that the special units are used
to punish political speech. Even the federal
government later admitted in that case that
McGowan was jailed contrary to the established law that inmates may write articles
under their own bylines.
Although a judge dismissed McGowan’s
claims in the lawsuit against the CMUs in
July 2013, he is now forging on against the
Bureau of Prisons for what he says was a
case of unconstitutional retaliation.
“McGowan was arrested for his criticism
of the government, plain and simple,” his
lawyer David Rankin told HuffPost in an
email. “Communication management units
are wrong now, they were wrong then, and
trying to tell that to the world should not
get you thrown back in prison.” ●
http://www.huffingtonpost.
com/2014/08/20/daniel-mcgowan-jailedfor_n_5694877.html?1408553679

ANGOLA
THREE INMATE
IN LONGEST
SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT
SEEKING
DAMAGES IN
COURT
Ed Pilkington
lbert Woodfox, on lockdown in a
small cell for 40 years, now seeking legal permission to sue the
Louisiana prison service
America’s longest-serving solitary confinement prisoner, who has been on lockdown in an isolated cell almost without
break for the past 40 years, will go before
a federal appeals court on Thursday seeking legal permission to sue the Louisiana
prison service for damages.
Albert Woodfox, 67, has been in solitary,
known in the jargon as “closed cell restriction”, since 18 April 1972 following a prison riot that resulted in the death of a guard.
Apart from a three-year period in which he
was kept among the general population of
a parish jail, he has spent every day since
then entirely alone in a 6ft by 8ft cell with
views through metal bars only of the concrete corridor.

A

He is held in the cell for 23 hours a day.
In the final hour he is allowed to shower and
walk up and down the corridor or, weather
permitting, to have an isolated walk in the
exercise yard.
Woodfox, one of three Black Panther
prisoners known as the “Angola Three”
who faced prolonged solitary confinement,
will argue in front of judges of the US fifth
circuit appeals court in New Orleans that
he should be allowed to sue prison officials from the two main penitentiaries for
damages. Under the eighth amendment of
the US constitution, state authorities are
banned from subjecting prisoners to cruel
and unusual punishment by depriving them
of their “basic human needs”.
“There is no other American prisoner
who has been as long in solitary,” Woodfox’s lawyer, George Kendall of the New
York-based law firm Squire Sanders, said.
“If you ask other prisoners who have spent
time in solitary, they will tell you that it
is the worst thing that can happen to you
in prison – it’s as lonely and painful as it
gets.”
If the appeals court upholds an early ruling from a lower court and allows Woodfox’s lawsuit to go to trial next year, the
Louisiana authorities face potentially massive financial penalties. Were he to win at
trial, not only would the prison service face
up to $1m in legal costs but it could also be
saddled with seven-figure damages.
The prison service will on Thursday seek
to swat away Woodfox’s lawsuit by claiming that all the prison officials being sued
are immune from legal challenge because
they have protection known as “qualified immunity”. The state emphasises that
in 2010 Woodfox was transferred from

Rock!

the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana
where he was held in closed cell restriction
since 1972 to the David Wade correctional
center.
As a result, Louisiana officials argue, the
clock restarted, meaning that he has only
been in solitary confinement for the past
four years rather than 40. In court documents, state officials argue that it is only
from the time of the transfer four years ago
“that the objective reasonableness” of the
correction department’s “conduct must be
measured”.
Woodfox’s lawyers will tell the appeals
court that such an argument makes a mockery of his experience over four decades
in solitary confinement irrespective of the
prisons in which he has been detained.
Woodfox’s extraordinary history of extended lockdown began when he was convicted along with a fellow Black Panther
member, Herman Wallace, of murdering
Angola prison guard Brent Miller during
the 1972 riot. Both men protested their innocence, but were kept in isolation almost
solidly since the date of their conviction.
Wallace was ordered released from Angola on 1 October 2013 after he was diagnosed as suffering from terminal liver cancer. He died a free man three days later.
The third member of the Angola Three,
another Black Panther member named
Robert Wilkerson, was put into solitary
in 1972 for a separate incident in which
he was accused of killing a prison inmate.
He was cleared of that crime in 2001 and
released from custody and since then has
lived in the community without further incident.
Woodfox’s lawyers contest that the harsh
treatment meted out to the Angola Three
has been a form of political punishment for
their membership of the radical socialist
Black Panther party. In all his years in solitary, he has only once been charged with a
single act of violence dating back to 1985.
Every 90 days he is given an official review of the conditions of his detention. But
his co-counsel Carine Williams says the reviews are “very perfunctory. He walks in,
they tell him they are not going to release
him from lockdown at this point – from our
perspective it is a sham proceeding.”
The prisoner is suffering from several
medical ailments including hypertension,
heart disease and kidney disease. Psychologically, his lawyers say, Woodfox is remarkably stoic and uncomplaining, but
Kendall said there had been a “horrible
toll” from prolonged isolation.
Volume 3, Number 10

In a legal declaration made in 2008,
Woodfox described the bouts of claustrophobia he suffers frequently in his
cell. “When I have an attack I feel like I
am being smothered, it is very difficult to
breathe, and I sweat profusely,” he said. “It
seems like the cell walls close in and are
just inches from my face. I try to cope by
pacing, or by closing my eyes and rocking
myself.” ●
http://www.theguardian.com/
world/2014/sep/04/angola-three/

WE CAN STOP
THE BEATINGS
OF TEXAS
PRISONERS —
TOGETHER!
By Keith ‘Comrade Malik’ Washington
Captain of Information, New Afrikan
Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter)
omrades; approximately 2-1/2
weeks ago, here on the Wynne
Unit, located in Huntsville, Texas,
a white male TDCJ Correctional Officer,
who holds the rank of Captain, beat a black
male prisoner unmercifully with his fists
in the hallway. The prisoner was swatting
flies away from his face as he stood in the
oppressive heat waiting on his medication.
Captain Daigle, a known racist, took this
action as a sign of aggression. No meaningful investigation was done. No witness statements were passed out. Another
cover-up of prisoner abuse which has become “business as usual” on the “Friendly”
Wynne Unit.
On August 10, 2014, at approximately
1:35 pm Correctional Officer I-Dakota
Davidson, a white male, attacked prisoner
Michael Dunn (a white prisoner). C.O. Davidson beat Micahel Dunn nearly unconscious! No investigation; No witness statements. And, Dunn was thrown in lock-up,
hidden from the outside world.
I was able to mobilize some white male
prisoners and show them how to have their
families file a “Free World” Ombudsman
Complaint in order to shed light on the
beatings, but concerned mothers of prisoners were afraid that their sons would
become the targets of retaliation by rogue
officers on the “Friendly” Wynne Unit.
Comrades; the beating of prisoners on
the Wynne Unit has crossed the color, or
racial, barrier. We, the White, Black and

C

Brown prisoners housed on Wynne, see
clearly that there is a class war going on.
Texas actually has laws on the books which
protect prisoners from assaults by sadistic
rogue correctional officers, but the ranking
administrators on this unit are not reporting
these incidents to the Department of Public
Safety, and the Office of the Inspector General seems to be a willing partner in covering up the abuse of human beings housed in
the TDCJ facilities.
Please help us expose these unethical
and immoral oppressors. Let’s take a look
at Texas Law and a quote from Huey P.
Newton.
Texas Government Code SEC 501.002:
“If an employee of the department commits an assault on an inmate housed in a
facility operated by, or under contract with,
the department, the executive director shall
file a complaint with the proper official of
the county in which the offense occurred.
If an employee is charged with an assault
described by this section, an inmate or person who was an inmate at the time of the
alleged offense may testify in a prosecution
of the offense.”
But you see Comrades; the law means
nothing if TDCJ prison employees conspire together to cover up heinous acts of
violence!
Lastly I leave you with some food for
thought from Comrade Huey P. Newton:
“One of the evils the guards were guilty of
was promoting racial animosity in prison,
using it to divide us. Many white prisoners are not outright or overtly racist when
they get to prison, but the staff soon turns
them in that direction. While the guards do
not want racial animosity to erupt into violence between inmates they do want hostility kept high enough to prevent any unity.”
Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide. .
Dare to Struggle! Dare to Win! All Power
to the People! ●

Did Ju Hear That....
A recent ar cle tled "The Lure of War", by Mumia
Abu-JamalIn Muia says "The latest is Obama’s war
against a rela vely small organiza on ‘ISIS’.
ISIS is a close descendant of a group founded and
formed by American, Bri sh, and Pakistani intelligence: al-Qaeda." He goes on to point out that war
technology, especially drone tech, has made war
almost easy. Thus, U.S. drones have bombed in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. According to an ar cle on alternet.org, the
U.S has launched some 94,000 drone air-strikes in
the noted areas. 94,000!*"
[*Source: Davies, N., “Since 9-11 Americas insane
Foreign Policy -con nued under Obama- has killed
a million and created ISIS.“ Sept. 10, 2014.]

5

[In this issue we have more letters than we
can print. We have a long one from William
“Billy” Martinez on the subject of strategy
that will be in the next issue.]

Am I Missing Something??
I read article after article praising the accomplishments of our hunger strikes. Yet
the only thing CDC has done is restructure
the gang policies and validation so they can
slam more people in the SHU for less years
than before.
People that believe the step down program is “cool” are clumsy and want to conform in the belief that it is an individual
option to participate or not. To that, I say
it’s every person’s choice to do what they
want at anything in life but be wary of the
consequences of the faulty program and
failure that you are setting yourself up for!
30,000 in the state stood up for this cause
because they see the bull-shit they’re doing to us. All these inmates on the yard
stood because they want to put an end to it
and believe in the five core demands. But
they’re getting repaid with us in the SHU
complying with the state in the SDP, or
even worse, what about the people that will
now be automatically profiled at the gate
and slammed in the SHU as soon as they
sneeze the wrong way because everything
is considered “Gang Activity” once you
are labeled? If they don’t wish to comply
with this chicken shit SDP program, – then
what, is it the SHU for life? At least before
they weren’t slamming and labeling everyone for anything! So what do the good men
who stood with us in this struggle on the
main-line get other than validated and in
our SHU’s? We got a few cosmetic items to
pacify us and make life in the SHU a little
more comfortable on and bull-shit politicians filling us with lies and broken promises. I understand some people want to
side with the lawyers and let the legal system play out but isn’t it de’ ja’ vu all over
again!? How are we going to have faith in
our courts when they have let us down during the Castillo case and others of that era?
Besides, when has the courts ever backed
convicts, they’re the system that convicted
us and the reason why CDC gets away with
isolating us for decades! Do you think this
is the first time isolation in California has
been challenged in our courts!? We got to
stand strong in this struggle as convicts and
6

understand having a shot at getting to the yard after all these
years to hug your loved ones is
important but don’t set yourself
up for another life time in the
SHU. Let’s keep this struggle
strong and united and we will
prevail but that won’t happen
by conforming and complying
with “Stepping Down” or false
hopes within the corrupt court
system. It is us that will make
change, yeah we had major outside support
but it was us that moved the system not the
courts and we need to keep moving, keep
momentum and stop stepping backwards
for chicken bones and politicians lying or
the court system that is slowing our progress while rules and regulations are changing.
Lastly, I would like to add about the SDP.
“Step Down” from what? Is this a similar
distinguishing tactic by CDC like SNY and
PC? They say SNY (Sensitive Needs) is
different than PC (Protective Custody) but
they’re the same. Maybe people don’t see it
that way but the name itself implies you’re
associated with something as you’re stepping down from it and even though people
say they don’t ask incriminating questions
in those journals, the questions “imply”
that you are what they say you are.
w/r don’t call us–we’ll call you.
Name withheld

LETTERS

LETTERS

link arms not let people conform for more
failure in the SDP, more validation and
false hopes through the court or crooked
politicians who change their mind like they
change their underwear. By conforming to
this SDP and playing their game has turned
off major support for our struggle reaching
the five core demands. It is very likely there
will be a lot less than the support we got
from the main-line in our last step on the
simple fact that their support is getting the
short end of the stick with 115’s retaliation
validation, etc. and they are only receiving
negative results as things are worse than
before.
Absolutely, we should never have
glanced an eye at their program and immediately repelled it so it would’ve never
even been considered to take effect in our
rules! Now it is what it is and we’re sitting
here worse off with this false delusion that
somehow we’re better because we got into
the courts corrupt system and a few people
got out to the mainline. Another delusion is
that over 800 people have been reviewed
and 550 released into the general population from the SHU. I wrote Assemblyman
Ammiano myself personally because he
was being told bogus propaganda from
CDC about this leading them and the public (and us) to believe it but the truth is the
mass majority of those reviews and releases
were from Ad-Seg’s from up and down this
state! These are hundreds of inmates waiting to go to the SHU on validation but were
never actually in the SHU a single day.
Also, CDC told him they planned on being
done with these “case-by-case” reviews in
two years and that was two years ago this
month but they tell us they’ve been reviewing inmates from being in the SHU in 1985
for the past year! Surely not for them to
take a year to do! One can only imagine
how many years it’s going to take this two
man team to review everyone in the SHU.
It’s a bunch of fluff so CDC can say to the
courts they’re letting everyone out of the
SHU’s and everyone is complying to their
program – SDP- so throw out the cases or
not just the courts but so the people can
see they’ve made successful change. It’s a
good try but we can’t let them do it!
The SDP is a failure and that is clear, we
don’t need to try it to know it’s a failure because it’s right in front of our eyes for all to
see in black and white. Critical thinking in
our position is crucial to achieve our goal.
So, I just ask men that are true supporters
of this cause to look at it for the long run. I

The Lucifer Effect
In the solidarity of all the oppressed people lies the strength to win the revolution.
The more than 2.3 million individuals incarcerated across the U.S. has become a log
in the eye of a nation that is always eager
to point out and complain about the speck
in the eye of its neighbors! Never before in
the history of civilization has a country condemn so many of its own people to imprisonment. Has society become so violent and
incorrigible and eroded that locking people
away is the key? Is incarceration the only
available tool that can ensure public safety?
If that is the case, how is the safety of the
public protected by warehousing people,
punishing them by locking them in an eight
by ten foot bathroom box for 22&1/2 hours
a day left to languish for decades before returning them to society worse off then they
were upon entering the system?
Isn’t obvious that the tactical use of incarceration has never been about public
safety? It was never intended to be a tool
Rock!

that would help to curb crime. It has never
been intended to be utilized as a corrective
of rehabilitative measure to aid prisoners.
The prison industrial complex is exactly
what its title is; Industry. An industry that
has been tweaked and fine tuned over the
span of 150 years in order to sustain the 1%
control over 99%. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect freeing
slaves in those territories still rebelling
against the Union. This created a void
in the workforce for plantation owners.
Though slaves were free, this was only an
illusion crafted by the masterful slight of
hand of a government not yet ready to lose
such cheap labor.
In 1865, the 13th Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution was passed and the government magicians crafted a caveat into the
amendment which reads; “Neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime . . . shall exist within the
United States.” The key words “except as a
punishment for a crime . . . “created an exception to the rule. In essence giving birth
to what would become a fundamentally
flawed system that would be free to exploit
its fellow human beings by forcing them to
provide cheap and hard labor for violating
the “law”.
Laws such as “vagrancy” and “loitering” would be enforced around harvest
time to ensure crops were picked and other
work around plantations would be done.
Industrial developers took notice of this
transaction between law enforcement and
land owners and bought in obtaining just
what they needed to maintain high yielding
profits on the backs of these workers. The
foundation was laid for what the system is
today. The political forces support this industry by passing laws that enhance criminal penalties, increasing penal incarceration and restricting parole. With this type
of support prisons have swelled beyond
capacity along with the wallets of its financial bankers and law makers (including
law enforcement agencies, prison guards,
judges, etc.).
Given this reality, the struggle to abolish
prisons in the U.S. and to change the way
crime and punishment are dealt with will
require being able to reconstruct the DNA
of U.S. society. But how do you remove the
financial incentive - the profitability of the
prison/slave system? In order to do these
things would require the U.S. to develop
new ways in addressing the growing issues of poverty, ethnic inequality, and the
misappropriation of tax dollars. This would
Volume 3, Number 10

also require the U.S. to remove the lipstick
from the pig that is the prison system; in
acknowledgement that it has never been a
department of corrections and rehabilitation. Instead, it is a system utilized to dehumanize the social structure and denigrate
its moral social values though the fact remains that even as the sun sets, a pig with
lipstick is still a pig.
There has been a recent shift in the consciousness of society. Citizens in the U.S.
and across the world have grown sick
and tired of the abuse of power exhibited
by governments which have given rise to
the blooming of protest and unrest across
the nation and world over. Things have to
change!
For a year or two, I have had the pleasure
of corresponding with a friend who runs
Truththat.org, Maya Shenwar. In a letter
a few months back she shared an intriguing morsel of monologue with me that was
trimmed from a conversation between her
and an activist who is working toward making the idea of restorative justice a national
reality. Restorative justice happens to be an
alternative to prison. Which would involve
the offender, victim, families and community members meeting together to figure
out a solution to the situation in place of
incarceration. “The activist,” Maya wrote,
“talked about how the definition of “crime”
is based mostly on things that poor people
do --- selling drugs, theft, gang related
crime, etc. Other types of harmful activities (such as rich bankers cheating people
or politicians taking funding away from
certain neighborhoods) or just someone
spreading a horrible rumor about someone
else) are not “crimes.”
My mind was blown after reading these
truths and having someone I’ve never met
echo my thoughts, not because I believe
my thoughts on the matter are unique (after
all beautiful minds think alike) but because
what she said was absolutely right. Why
isn’t the latter group of “harmful activities”
crimes? Why aren’t the people involved
in the harmful activities prosecuted to the
fullest extent of the law?
Thanks to the power that be, there exists
a double standard which stands in the midst
of society separating the 1% from the 99%
like the Mexican-American border separates the Sonoran desert. Therefore, in order to begin implementing restorative justice into the DNA of U.S. society, everyone
must be equally accountable for breaking
the law and made to act here to the same
standards of it. If the 1% can get away

with their law infractions by going to rehab or doing community service, why can’t
the rest of the 99%? There are an endless
supply of examples of people with money
getting away with criminal activities, such
as drug possession, soliciting prostitution,
carrying illegal weapons, etc. , while those
who are in poverty who are charged with
identical crimes are shipped off to prisons
across the U.S. for decades at a time.
With restorative justice as a beginning,
society can help to build a sense of community again by helping the development
of people and not prisons. People are more
than just a crime. Why not treat them as
such? Treat them with the same compassion and humanity that is afforded to all
human beings. Crimes are committed by
good people who have made bad decisions
in life.
A lot of crime has to do with circumstances such as; low income, little to no
job opportunities, poor schools . . . With
restorative justice there can be job training,
technological schools, the chance to attend
college or join the military. . . The possibilities can be endless. It’s not a refined
idea, though it is an idea to contemplate in
place of prisons – which don’t seem to be
working.
Mark San Juan
A Nice Letter
[I wrote to the author of the below letter:
“Your article on the 'An A-B-C Approach
to Organizing the Prison Movement' will
be published in the September issue of
the Rock newsletter. That piece took third
place. Well done. You can thank Mark
Cook. I thought you were pushing your own
trip at the expense of prisoners in general,
but Mark overruled me.”]
In brief, this is just to acknowledge receipt of the $50 dollar donation that you
sent. Thank you. We will definitely put it to
use—for our much needed basic essentials.
And be sure to send a clenched fist salute to Mark Cook for being on the job, by
recognizing the materialism in the article
submission.
In truth, we wouldn’t know what to do
with you if it were not for the resolve and
ability of Comrade Mark to keep you in
balance. In fact, give Mark a great big bear
hug for me [bear hug was given], along
with my revolutionary love—because you
were way out there, in thinking that I was
taking a shot at other prisoners. Comrade,
you’re something else. Haha Take care.
Kijana
7

Ashker Memo ...... Continued from page 1
test action was “suspended” and many prisoners are not happy with much of the STGSDP policy!! They aren’t being treated
humanely-with dignity, or respect, under
the present structure and implementation
of said policy...
Like it or not, you need prisoners cooperation, support, and participation with any
policy affecting thousands, or your policy
fails!
For example, if all prisoners refused to
participate in you SDP, while you go by the
STG provisions your policy fails you because you end up having tens-of-thousands
on Step 1, indefinite SHU status...
Add peaceful actions, resulting in additional peaceful protesting prisoners’ deaths,
and costs, etc... should you have to force
feed a hundred to two hundred etc. prisoners- and related global attention... At
some point, jobs would be lost and changes
made- ending the failed policy!! Will it
come down to this?? The bottom line is,
long-term-indefinite-SHU is not effective
and harms all concerned. It’s ending nationwide and this will be the case in Calif.
too- better to be sooner than later...
With the above in mind, the following
are points supporting the referenced facts
and unresolved issues you have the power
to meaningfully resolve:
1) Our alternative proposal to the STGSDP has been on the table since Sept.
2012.... It’s based on principle points of (a)
SHU placement being reserved for those
guilty of felonious type violations assessed
determinate SHU terms, and (b) A modified
type of general population transition program between SHU and G.P.- Our mediation team has details about this proposal,
which have been provided to you as well.
The SDP-Steps 3 and 4, aren’t even close
to this (e.g. zero contact visits)
2) In addition to provisions enabling
continued indefinite SHU placement and
retention, the following examples support
the position that the STG-SDP as structured and implemented is designed to fail...
(a) The issue(s) re: legitimate- meaningful- incentives for each step have not been
satisfactorily resolved (e.g. allowing more-

8

phone calls, photographs, packages/special
purchases, contact visits, etc.)
(b) Steps 3 and 4 at CCI-Tehachapi, are
seen as a bad-step down re: conditions,
programming and privileges- to the extent
that many prisoners see no point in participating!

By D. Nanez

Examples are: visits are limited to (1)
hour, on either Sat. or Sun.; cells are dirty
and cleaning materials are not being provided; nor is laundry, clothing, linen, etc,
being provided/exchanged; the T.V. and
radio stations are very limited and out of
signal all the time; the food is bad; shower
program is poorly run- as is yard program;
property is processed very slowly, and typewriters are not being allowed, etc.,etc.,etc;
Staff attitudes are poor!!
Plus, many prisoners held in PBSP-SHU
for decades have loved ones who reside in
the Del Norte Co. area- with jobs, etc., and
a transfer to CCI is a hardship to their loved
ones...
You have ability to remedy the above, via
use of former PSU [at PBSP] cell block(s)
for Steps 3 & 4... These steps should also
allow contact visits!! A Step 3 and 4 at
PBSP should be an option for those with
local family ties, etc!!
There’s no legitimate penological basis
to deny these prisoners human physical
contact with loved ones and friends... Up
until mid-1986, all SHU prisoners were allowed contact visits- thus, it’s a reasonable,
meaningful incentive for those prisoners
participation in Steps 3 and 4...
(c) The journals remain a problem for
many (e.g. Corcoran) and I will point out
that George Guirbino, et al, admitted at one
of our meetings last year, that the journals

were ‘lacking re: substantive rehab, value’
-qualifying this with- “but that’s all that’s
available.” Look, we all know the journals
have zero relevance to rehabilitation of
prisoners transitioning between SHU and
G.P. (demonstrated by the fact that prisoners placed on Step 5 by DRB’s case-by-case
reviews of long-term SHU prisoners don’t
have to do a single journal!!) You should
make the journals a voluntary self-help
program available to all CDCR prisoners...
The way you’re using them as required part
of SDP- Steps1-4, makes you all look badfor many reasons!!
(d) The case by case reviews at PBSP are
too slow—100’s still wait on theirs.
Miscellaneous Issues Remaining To Be
Resolved Include But Are Not Limited To:
1. Mattresses (As you know, PIA mattresses are a big problem!??)
2. Restriction on privileges should only
be based on being guilty of abusing the
specific privilege
(eg., photographs, art materials)
3. Allowable art materials expanded, per,
principle of individual accountability (eg,
woodless colored pencils, and all type of
art paper)
4. Photograph program for SHU/Ad-Seg
visiting- as done in Vacaville in the 80’s
(visitor and prisoner in photo, taken on
visitor’s side of glass)
Your attention and anticipated positive
responsive resolution(s) to the above subjects is appreciated.
Todd Ashker, C58191/PBSP-D4-121

WHAT IS
REVOLUTIONARY
INTERCOMMUNALISM?
By Tom “Big Warrior” Watts
evolutionary-Intercommunalism
is the theoretical understanding
that the world we live in today,
has become globalized and the principle
contradiction in the world is now between
the need of the capitalist-imperialist ruling
class to consolidate their global hegemony
and the anarchy and chaos they are unleashing by attempting to do so, including the
threat of a new world war. RevolutionaryIntercommunalism recognizes that because
of this globalization, independent nation
states can no longer exist as such, and cannot exist except as temporarily “liberated

R

Rock!

territory” besieged and undermined by the
forces and agents of capitalist-imperialism.
Revolutionary-Intercommunalism is illuminated by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
(MLM) and the theory and practice of the
original Black Panther Party (BPP) and
allied formations in the revolutionary upsurge of the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s; and
in particular the theoretical contributions
of the BPP’s Minister of Defense, Huey
P. Newton. Comrade Huey summed up
that because of automation, the capitalistimperialists would increasingly be unable
to profitably exploit a growing percentage
of the proletariat as wage workers, and this
growing mass of “unemployables” would
eventually become the majority of the
population. He further theorized that the
lumpen (broken) proletariat would provide
the basis for a new revolutionary vanguard
that would act as a catalyst upon the whole
proletariat and masses of people to inspire
them to rise up against and overturn the
capitalist-imperialist system.
When we apply this analysis on a world
scale, we see that large-scale capitalist
agriculture has rendered the small-scale
production of the peasant class obsolete,
and that it is pushing the peasantry off the
land and into the proletariat, as they have
nothing left but to sell their labor power
to survive, while at the same time the employed section of the proletariat is shrinking. Thus, throughout the “Third World”
there is a growing mass of “unemployable”
and marginalized poor concentrated in and
around the urban centers living under dire
conditions, or being compelled to emigrate
to the “First World” imperialist countries in
search of employment, even as industrial
jobs are being outsourced to the “Third
World” to take advantage of the cheap labor available there. Thus we have a situation of rapidly changing demographics in
the “First World” countries.
In this declining phase of capitalist-imperialism, where nations are submerged
into Empire, the “mother countries” of
imperialism are being transformed into
“Third World” countries while capitalistimperialism is “ghettoizing” the dependant
countries of the actual “Third World.” In
the four decades since Huey Newton announced his Theory of Revolutionary-Intercommunalism in 1970, we have seen all
his predictions come to pass, as well as an
eightfold increase in the imprisoned population of the U.S., and the rise of the “New
Slavery” of the prison-industrial complex.
Moreover, wages have remained at or beVolume 3, Number 10

low what they were in 1970 (when adjusted
for inflation), though corporate profits have
soared to record highs, and the “Safety
Net” of social welfare programs has been
dramatically cut back and is in danger of
being all together eliminated.
In effect, there is a “War on the Poor,”
within the U.S. and internationally, while
the ruling class grabs up the lion’s share of
the wealth and power for itself and is driven to monopolize control over fuel, food
and water globally and to subordinate every country to their economic and political
domination. The concentration of wealth
and power into ever fewer hands, and the
systematic generalization of poverty, (driving masses below the level of bare subsistence), can only be ended and resolved by
World Proletarian Socialist Revolution.
The absence of a “Socialist Bloc,” as
existed previously under the leadership of
the Soviet Union, and later People’s China,
emboldens U.S.-led imperialism to bully
the world and demand complete subordination to it global hegemony. NATO has
been aggressively expanded, and of the 190
some countries in the world, more than 150
now have U.S. military bases and instillations and in many cases integrated military
commands. Even though Russia and China
are now capitalistic and integrated into the
world capitalist system, they are viewed as
potential rivals by U.S. imperialism, which
demands their complete subordination. Instead of a “Socialist Bloc,” we have a formerly-socialist camp of semi-independent
national bourgeois dictatorships clinging to
the forlorn hope of achieving their own imperial hegemony in a bi-polar world.
The proletarians of today truly have no
country. In every country, we are the oppressed and exploited – or the “broken,”
- who have little connection to the global
economy except as poor consumers. What
we have is a world to win!
Our world is made up of communities in
which we live, under the oppression of a
growing police state. It
is a world where day to
day, week to week, and
month to month survival
is a constant struggle.
Even those lucky enough
to have jobs live paycheck to paycheck, with
bills to pay every month
and less to pay them
with. We can communicate instantly around
the world, (though “Big

Brother” is listening), but everywhere we
have no voice on the matters that determine our very existence. We share a common culture and economic life, we wear the
same clothes and shop for the same things;
we can get on a jet plane and fly anywhere
in the world in a few hours, but everywhere
we are under the same exploitative capitalist empire.
Culture and location define our communities. Neighborhoods, regions and
countries define one type of community,
and ethnicity, religion and life style define
another. There is the gay community, the
Black community, the biker community,
the hip hop community and so forth. We all
live in communities!
Revolutionary-Intercommunalism promotes solidarity between communities, and
a culture of resistance to all oppression. In
opposition to the “War on the Poor,” it promotes strategies for survival and mutual assistance. In the broadest sense, it promotes
a worldwide people’s war against the capitalist empire and the creation of “liberated
zones” and “dual power.” In particular, it
promotes the transformation of urban oppressed communities into base areas of
cultural, social and political revolution,
and the creation of “People’s Power” at the
grassroots level. In the prisons and other
“Slave Pens of Oppression,” it promotes
their transformation into “Schools of Liberation,” as well as a united campaign to
defeat the imperialists’ strategy of criminalization and mass incarceration of the
poor.
The goal of revolutionary-intercommunialism is to overthrow capitalist-imperialism and create a worldwide “Dictatorship
of the Proletariat” as a preparatory step
towards “World Communism,” classless,
stateless, egalitarian society, a world without poverty and war, where everyone has
an equal right to access the fruits of our
common labor. ●
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

9

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On Jailhouse Lawyers
“…jailhouse lawyers often unwittingly serve the interests of the state
by propagating the illusion of ‘justice’
and ‘equity’ in a system devoted to
neither.” They create “illusions of legal options as pathways to both individual and collective liberation.”
Mumia Abu-Jamal,
JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: Prisoners
Defending Prisoners v. The U.S.A.

SHOUT OUT BOX
A hearty shout out to
Gabriel A. Huerta for his donation of $50, which equaled
just under 100 forever stamps.

Rock on!
(Those stamps were used for
the last issue. We need more.)

Ed Mead, Publisher
Rock Newsletter
P.O. Box 47439
Seattle, WA 98146

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