4strugglemag

Issue 8 - Fall 2006

Fighting Imperialism, Rap Music, Revolution and Youth, Revolutionary Art, Lynne Stewart and More!

Hey everyone, here's your latest 4strugglemag, number 8! As always this issue is loaded with revolutionary information and analysis, a lot of it from political prisoners in the United States.

We begin with a section on imperialism and the worldwide struggle against it. This includes articles on North Korea, Palestine and Lebanon. The second section features information on political prisoners in America and the conditions they face. In the third section we begin a dialog proposed by brother Akili in the last issue, on Hip Hop, Youth and Revolution. This sections includes words from Mumia abu Jamal, Herman Bell and many other insightful revolutionary voices.

Other sections include information about a new art show of Work by Ohio 7 political prisoner Tom Manning, and the launching of a new art and revolutionary politics web site. We also have details and analysis on Lynne Stewart's prison sentence. You will want to check out the information on a newly released Tribute Book on the life and work of Richard Williams. Also we have details on how people can order the colorful and informative 2007 political prisoner calendar. Finally I hope readers will also check out and consider my legal update and appeal near the end of this issue.

Issue 9, which will begin our fourth year of publication, will be out in February. We invite people to send their thoughts on matters discussed here, particularly further dialog based on Akili's letter. We will also print the entire findings of the 1992 international tribunal, "Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nations in the USA." Essays, letters, graphics and poems can be sent to our discussion board or mailed to, the 4struggle P.O. Box.

Ideas and discussion are always important, but taking action is what counts the most. We urge everyone to support and participate in anti-war activities in your area. It's time to end this war in Iraq -- Bring all the troops home now - period!

See you in February.
Dynamic Peace and Justice
Jaan Laaman, editor

Cover image: Che Guevara (2006)
Acrylic on canvas, 18"x24"

Oscar Lopez Rivera
#87651-024
P.O. Box 12015
Terre Haute, IN 47801
U.S.P. Terre Haute

Table of Contents

section one: fighting imperialism & imprisonment

North Korea, Imperialism and Nuclear Weapons - Jaan Laaman
Stop War Threats Against North Korea - Workers.org
Imperialism’s Two Failures: Iraq and Lebanon - Workers.org
Facts About Palestinian Political Prisoners - New England Committee to Defend Palestine
Political Prisoners Speak - Richard Hugus
Statement from U.S. Political Prisoners in Support of Palestine
Political Prisoners in the United States - Jaan Laaman
Real Imperialist Wars and Phony Excuses - Rene Gonzales
The Psychological Effects of Imprisonment - Ali Khalid Abdullah
Amerikan Prisons are Government-Sponsored Torture = Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson
Oregon Eco-saboteurs Admits Responsibility - Civil Rights Outreach Committee

section two: hip hop, revolution, and youth

A Letter from Akili - Akili Castlin
Akili’s Letter: A Response - Mumia Abu-Jamal
A Response - Lasyah M. Palmer
On Bro. Akili’s Suggestions - Herman Bell
Response to Akili’s Letter - Robert Phillippe
Free em All - Russell Shoatz Jr.
From the Message Board - Walidah
Hip Hop’s Elegy (Beloved Thugs #2) - Akili Castlin
Liberation or Gangsterism: Freedom or Slavery? - Russell Maroon Shoats
Young People Future - Maurice J. Bush-El

section three: building a revolutionary art and a revolutionary future

Still Can’t Jail the Spirit - Portland Victory Gardens Project
Marilyn Buck, a painting - By Tom Manning
How Do We Get There from Here? - By Bill Dunne
Richard Williams: An Unbreakable Spirit
Lynne Stewart Sentenced to Prison - By Jaan Laaman
Account of Lynne Stewart’s Sentencing Hearing - By Robin Hood
Oveturn Terror Show-Trial Convictions - From Worker’s Vanguard
Certain Days: 2007 Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar!
A Fall 2006 Update and Appeal from Jaan Laaman

Fighting Imperialism

North Korea, Imperialism, and Nuclear Weapons

by Jaan Laaman

Let me begin by stating I think all nuclear weapons should be eliminated. It was a terrible mistake for humanity that nuclear bombs were ever invented. In a world dominated by imperialism, a system driven by profit, exploitation and military "might makes right," it was inevitable, I suppose, that nukes were developed.

There are 5 major nuclear weapons powers in the world. The United States, which first developed nuclear weapons and which is the only country to ever use them on human beings (the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 - neither of which were significant military targets, both of which suffered tens of thousands of civilian casualties). The U.S. today has over 10,000 highly developed and weaponized nuclear bombs, missles, and artillery rounds. Russia has a somewhat similar number and assortment of nukes. France, England and China have smaller but also high tech arsenals of nuclear weapons. In the late 90's, India and Pakistan joined the nuclear weapons group when they tested nuclear bombs. Both countries have small arsenals now.

It is a known "secret" that Israel, with clandestine assistance from the U.S. military, acquired nuclear weapons in the 1970's. They are assumed to have a small but sizable nuclear arsenal today.

On October 8, 2006, North Korea successfully tested a nuclear bomb. Several days earlier, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK - usually called North Korea in the U.S. media) Foreign Ministry issued a clear statement, "The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense."

The Bush government, the corporate news media and most of the ruling elite in America, are falling over each other condemning and demonizing this nuclear test by the DPRK.

It's important to look at this situation with a little reflection. Who is the U.S. government, Britain, France or any of the armed to the teeth nuclear weapons powers, to criticize North Korea for testing one small bomb? Let's remember the United States was instrumental in dividing the ancient nation of Korea into a South and North in the 1940's. It was the U.S. that sent huge armies to the Korean peninsula in the early 1950's to fight a war there, and who has maintained an army of occupation numbering 10's of thousands of soldiers in South Korea ever since. It is the U.S. government that has refused to officially end the Korean war and who has refused to sign a treaty of peace with the DPRK.

In recent times, President Bush singled out North Korea, along with Iraq and Iran as an "axis of evil." In 2002, in the official U.S. government "Nuclear Posture Review", North Korea was listed as a target for U.S. nuclear missles.
Perhaps most ominously, in 2002 Bush stated his policy of "preemption", where the U.S. government declared its "right" to unilaterally attack, invade, overthrow the existing government, and occupy any country it considered an enemy. We all know that within a year, this is exactly what the Bush government did to Iraq. Although the U.S. is now bogged down in a deadly war of resistance to its occupation and the initial reasons for the war (Iraq's supposed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction), have been proven false, the U.S. government still claims it was right to invade Iraq. This lesson was certainly learned by countries around the world. If you don't bow down to U.S. imperialism and do as it commands, you better have weapons powerful enough to make the U.S. government think twice, or you will be next to get invaded.

The DPRK now has a more powerful weapon. They have as much right, and probably a lot more need, to have nuclear weapons as any other country, including the 7 official nuclear weapons nations, plus Israel. North Korea is a small, poor, but proud nation. It has resisted imperialism and U.S. threats and sanctions for decades. It has developed its own economic system and in recent years moved towards a process of reunification with South Korea. The people of America have nothing to fear from North Korea. What we should do is push our government to finally, after 53 years, sign a peace treaty with the DPRK. The crisis on the Korean peninsula could be resolved if the U.S. government would just do three basic things: 1.) sign a peace treaty and recognize the sovereignty of the DPRK; 2.) establish normal diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries; 3.) guarantee the DPRK's security against a preemptive U.S. attack. Although we don't often hear this in the corporate U.S. news media, the North Korean government has been asking for these 3 steps for the last 50 years.

It is time for the U.S. to quit bullying North Korea. They now have a nuclear weapon so this "game" is now potentially much more deadly. Today it is more important that ever, that we the American public become more aware of what the U.S. government is doing in our name, what the real history is behind places like Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, etc, before we are stuck in some new "Iraq type" war. Let's work to end this Iraq war by bringing ALL U.S. troops home now - period! And let's not let Bush or some future U.S. government scam us into attacking North Korea or any other country.

Knowledge is power
Imperialism brings war

Jaan Laaman
anti-imperialist political prisoner

Jaan Laaman (W87237)
P.O. Box 100
South Walpole, MA 02071

WWP statement on crisis in Korea: Stop war threats against North Korea

www.workers.org
October 9, 2006

Editor's Note:

Following is the Workers World party statement on the crisis in Korea.

Washington created the crisis; Washington must end It
Stop war threats; No sanctions against the DPRK!
Respect Korean sovereignty--Sign a peace treaty now!

The present crisis arises directly out of the implacable hostility of the U.S. imperialist government to the socialist government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The DPRK has been trying for over 50 years to get Washington to end its threats and provocations, normalize relations and sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War. During that war, which ended in 1953 with a cease-fire, U.S.-led forces killed 4 million Koreans and leveled the North with saturation bombing.
Instead of moving toward peace and responding to the DPRK's numerous proposals for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the Bush administration has branded the DPRK as part of an “axis of evil,” has put it on a “terrorist” list and targeted it for “regime change.” The DPRK is encircled by a naval armada of U.S. guided missile destroyers, bomber and fighter squadrons, nuclear weapons and 30,000 U.S. troops in South Korea. The Pentagon has repeatedly carried out menacing military maneuvers directed at the DPRK.

Washington has not only refused to guarantee the safety of the DPRK but has reserved the right to launch a "preemptive strike" against it and, in its Nuclear Posture Review of 2002, declared its right to use nuclear weapons against the DPRK.

The North Korean government has been branded "unpredictable" and therefore "dangerous" by the propagandists for war in the capitalist media. This is nonsense. Given all the unrelenting U.S. military threats--plus the fact that the U.S. government has only recently overthrown the government of Iraq by unilateral, unprovoked military force--the DPRK's efforts to develop an effective deterrent against military, and possibly nuclear, attack are entirely predictable, totally defensible and a matter of national survival.

Washington has created the present crisis. The people of the United States and the world must demand that Washington end the crisis by abandoning its threats and provocations, dropping its demand for sanctions, and sitting down and negotiating the normalization of relations with the DPRK, including the signing of a peace treaty to end the more than 50 years of U.S. imperialist aggression in the region.

Workers World Party
55 West 17th Street,
New York, NY 10011
212-627-2994

Political Prisoners Speak

September 23, 2006
by Richard Hugus

New England Committee to Defend Palestine: www.onepalestine.org
Jericho Boston: www.jerichoboston.org

On Sunday, September 17 The New England Committee to Defend Palestine and the Boston chapter of the Jericho Movement held an event in Boston to raise funds for Palestinian political prisoners. The opening talk was from Ahmad Kawash, a Palestinian refugee from Miamia camp in Lebanon, who spoke of the human effect of imprisonment on prisoners and their families in Palestine, and the prisoner status of the majority of Palestinians, whether enclosed by the Wall in the West Bank, or living in camps as refugees. Ahmad Kawash said that since the U.S. and Israelis don’t care about international law, the only way to free this imprisoned society is through organized resistance, as exemplified by Hizbollah and Hamas.

There are currently 10,163 Palestinians imprisoned for political reasons by the “Israeli” colonial occupiers. 50,000 residents of the West Bank and Gaza have been detained since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September, 2000. 5,000 of these detainees have been children. 700,000 people – 25% of the total population – have been detained since 1967. It is estimated that this includes more than 40% of the total male population. For adult males, the number is probably higher than 80%. Detention routinely involves torture.

The September 17 event was held in memory of Black September, the month in 1970 when Jordanian forces under King Hussein massacred as many as 5,000 Palestinian refugees in Amman. Those familiar with the history of Palestine know that other "Black Septembers" followed. In September of 1982, in an effort to crush Palestinian resistance in Lebanon, Phalangist forces under the supervision of Ariel Sharon slaughtered 2,000 Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. In September of 1993, the official signing of the Oslo Accords legitimized the theft of 78% of Palestine and created an infrastructure for settlement expansion in what remained. In September of 2000, Zionist forces murdered 13 Palestinians, marking the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Now, in September 2006, the entire territory of Gaza is under a siege of killing and starvation, and Lebanon is reeling from the recent destruction from U.S.-sponsored Israeli bombing.

But this September also comes at the beginning of new resistance to U.S. and Zionist imperialism in western Asia. Hizbollah has emerged victorious and stronger than ever in Lebanon, and the popularity of Hamas in Palestine signals the resolve of Palestinians to continue to stand up and fight back. In both cases the greatest resistance seems to come in the midst of the greatest hardship and punishment. The same current has reached the US, where the strongest support for Palestine now comes from those who have endured the worst prisons the U.S. has to offer, from those who have proven their commitment to national liberation and anti-imperial struggles over the past fifty years, and who are the first to say that their struggle is the same as that of the Palestinians. These are the leaders and resistance fighters of the New Afrikan, Native, and Puerto Rican independence movements.

At the September 17 commemoration, unqualified messages of support for Palestine were read from Rafael Cancel Miranda, David Gilbert, Bill Dunne, Marilyn Buck, Russell "Maroon" Shoats, Jalil Muntaqim, Debbie Sims Africa, Albert Woodfox, Jaan Laaman, and Byron Chubbuck.

National co-chairs of the national Jericho movement, former political prisoners Kazi Touré and Ashanti Allston delivered messages in person at the event. The tone and strength of all the messages put to shame the white liberal and impotent discourse which dominate most of what is called the "antiwar movement" in the U.S. today. Even more, the prisoners’ statements may be a first major step in redressing the long-standing problem of the betrayal of Palestine by the U.S. left going back many years. Once it was the betrayal of silence. Now, at a time when no one can ignore Palestine, it is the betrayal of purposely remaining too weak to take a meaningful stand.

Jalil Muntaqim, who was instrumental in the founding of the Jericho movement in 1998, sent a statement to Palestinian political prisoners which spoke to the need for the U.S. left to act decisively:

“When we in North America fail to act, fail to confront and engage our common enemy we have betrayed you and our words of solidarity become empty and hollow. Therefore, it is the duty of political activist and progressive folks in this country to build a mass and popular movement that specifically challenges white supremacy and national oppression here. The struggle in the U.S. needs to grow and evolve in a consistent level of resistance that corresponds to—if not exceeds—the degree of oppression and reaction by U.S. imperialism. Unfortunately, that is not happening here, and because of this failing, more Palestinians are dying who could have possibly been saved. Harsh truths, but truths none the less, and it is far time that progressive forces in the U.S. come to terms with this reality.”

Jalil Muntaqim is currently in prison in Auburn N.Y. Like many other political prisoners, he is not mentioned at popular rallies, nor honored by the antiwar movement. According to one organizer of the September 17 event, people in Boston Jericho and the New England Committee to Defend Palestine “felt it was important to bring forward the voice of U.S. political prisoners not only to support and build the resistance struggles they represent, but also because their existence helps to unmask the falsehood about ‘American democracy’ that the U.S. tries to project while at the same time promoting its own imperial interests. Thus the event also had the purpose of reminding people of these political prisoners, their history of struggle, the history of domestic repression, and the utter sham of a U.S. ‘democracy’ promoting ‘democracy’ worldwide.”

Myriam Ortiz, a Puerto Rican independentista, spoke at the event of the many similarities between the 108 year old occupation of Puerto Rico and the 58 year old occupation of Palestine and cautioned against accepting either as established fact because of these long years. The similarities she cited between Puerto Rico and Palestine were that both countries have been plagued by foreign occupation throughout their histories, that both were denied status as countries in their own right due to these histories, that exile was forced on many of their inhabitants, that they were both then invaded by settler societies, that racism and attacks on indigenous culture typify those settler societies, that economic dependence was intentionally imposed on them, and that they were subject to genocidal experiments and practices.

Myriam Ortiz also touched on the co-optation that has occurred in “progressive” circles within the imperium:

“The invader's propaganda is not just present in the schools we attend, and the media we watch or read. Often it infiltrates what is supposed to be our progressive discourse.

Pacifism, human rights, and feminism are often co-opted to attack anti-colonial resistance and deny its legitimacy. Always bombarded by colonial propaganda, we sometimes echo that anti resistance language disguised as progressivism, as if it were some universally held truth.

In the case of Puerto Rico, the American "leftists" who swoon over the Cuban revolution, quote Che Guevara, and supported the Sandinistas, argue that armed struggle would be a bad option for us, because it would alienate the American "working class;" a working class that has always been complicit with the U.S.'s colonial projects.

In the case of Palestine, the "Israeli" and American left reject armed struggle, because they see the settlers as "innocent" "civilians;" never mind that those settlers are responsible for the exodus of about 900,000 Palestinians already; never mind they've built their homes on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian homes, and continue to do so; never mind they all join the "Israeli" military that protects the theft perpetrated against Palestinians; never mind that those same "innocent" "civilians" often engage in the persecution and humiliation of Palestinians. Curiously, that "socialism loving" zionist left, who praised the armed resistance against Hitler, who often praises the Cuban revolution, suddenly discovers the "merits" of Gandhi and nonviolence when it comes to Palestine.”

Marta Rodriguez, another Puerto Rican independentista, sent the following message from her home in Puerto Rico:

"You should all be very happy, not only because of the money raised for Palestinian political prisoners, but because you struck quite a blow at the zionists, and most particularly the left zionists. For years they've gotten away with denying Palestine's place among the nations fighting colonialism and invasion by arguing that "the situation is complicated" without being challenged by non-Palestinians. On September 17 we heard from representatives of different resistance anticolonial movements who said otherwise. The next time some "soft" zionist comes to argue that "the "Palestine/Israel" "conflict" is "more complicated," tell her/him to ask Don Rafael, or any of the Resistance prisoners who partook of the event via their solidarity messages. Eventually they will have no place to hide."

Who are the left Zionists? They're the people who fill books and give long speeches about the suffering of the Palestinians, and don't mention a word about the absolute legitimacy of armed resistance to the colonizers who caused this suffering. They're the people who say we need to "listen to both sides", implying that the murderer and thief has as much right to be heard as the victim. They're the people who will criticize "Israel" up one side and down the other, but only for the purpose of making "Israel" nicer -- a kind of clever blockade against the much more obvious conclusion that "Israel" should be done away with altogether. They're the people who say Palestinians should have equal rights and a state of their own in the West Bank and Gaza, but of course not any of the land stolen by colonial settlers since 1948. Left Zionists have a comfortable home in the United States, because the U.S. was founded on the same crimes, and is open to the same condemnation.

From at least the 1960's the U.S. left has been influenced by activists and intellectuals who took principled stands on almost every issue but Palestine. Some were Zionists intentionally working for the cause. Some were simply afraid to face the mountain of guilt laid at the feet of the West in general for genocide committed against Jewish people. But it is becoming harder and harder to ignore the genocide being committed today under the aegis of Zionism, and to separate Zionism from its benefactor, U.S. imperialism. The killing never stops. Gaza is being punished again and again. The restrictions on Palestinian life become more and more severe. Lebanon has again been devastated by Israeli bombs and missiles. Yet no one speaks.

Those who took most to heart and led the important struggles of the sixties for the liberation of Puerto Rico, of Vietnam, of Afrikan and native people under racist oppression – have now demonstrated their strength again, most of them from behind bars, with a message of great significance: Palestine too is a struggle for national liberation, and there is no time for us to dither. It is interesting that these prisoners, who come from different experiences, who don't know each other, all concluded that Palestine is a nation fighting colonialism and has a right to resist. It speaks volumes of Palestine's rightful place among nations resisting colonialism that all it takes is for someone to recognize her/his own colonial experience in order to see Palestinians as involved in the same struggle. In his message, Rafael Cancel Miranda said:
"I admire the Palestinian people, because I know how much love and courage it takes to struggle with their determination. My people, the people of Puerto Rico are engaged in a similar struggle. I can say without fear of self deception that we will win; not only because truth and reason are on our side, but because we are ready to do whatever is necessary to secure the rights of our peoples."

Rafael Cancel Miranda is a Puerto Rican nationalist and former political prisoner for 28 years, who, along with Andrés Figueroa Cordero, Irvin Flores and Lolita Lebrón, protested the criminal nature of the U.S. colonial domination of Puerto Rico by opening fire on the U.S. Congress in 1954. Don Rafael was sentenced to eighty-four years for “an attempt to overthrow the government by force and violence.” As a result of pressure from the Puerto Rican Independence movement and the international community, he was released without conditions in 1979.

It is time for activists in the U.S. to realize that their country too, like Israel, is founded on genocide and wars of aggression, and needs to be dealt with from a revolutionary, not a reformist, perspective. It can’t be changed from within; it can't be made nicer. Our duty to the rest of the world whom the U.S. has so long oppressed is to work where we are to stop this unbelievable monster from going any further.

Facts about Palestinian Political Prisoners

September 2006
The New England Committee to Defend Palestine
www.onepalestine.org

According to statistics released by prisoner support organizations at the end of August 2006, there are currently 10,163 Palestinians imprisoned for political reasons by the “Israeli” colonial regime. 355 are children. 730 prison¬ers are being held in what is known as “administrative detention.” This means that they have never been formally accused or gone to trial, but are held under a military detention order that can be renewed every three months indefinitely. Some prisoners have been held in “administrative detention” for years.

A recent report by the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees reveals that 50,000 residents of the West Bank and Gaza have been detained since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa intifada in September of 2000. 5,000 of these detainees have been children.

700,000 people—25% of the total population—have been detained since 1967. It is estimated that this includes more than 40% of the total male population. For adult males, the number is probably higher than 80%.

Detention routinely involves torture. According to the most recent report, 99% of child detainees have been tortured by soldiers and guards.

Torture includes beatings of sensitive organs, choking, pulling of hair off the body, prolonged solitary confinement, subjecting detainees to noise, screams, and threats against their families, forc¬ing Palestinian detainees to stand hood¬ed and handcuffed for long periods of time, the use of electric shock, burning, beatings with hands, fists, truncheons, and boots, deprivation of sleep and basic hygiene; and starvation. Prisoners are also tear-gassed in confined spaces. 183 prisoners have died as a result of torture and medical neglect.

Of the current prisoners, more than 100 are women and more than 500 women have been detained since September of 2000. Several women have been detained while pregnant and denied adequate prenatal care. Some have given birth in prison and continue to be detained along with their infant children. In addition to imprisoning women for their political activities, according to a report from Palestin¬ian authorities at the end of August, “Israeli” occupation forces have recently been detaining a growing number of women as hostages in order to pressure their husbands and relatives into mak¬ing confessions.

At the end of June 2006, the colonial regime shocked the world by impris¬oning 27 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and eight ministers from the newly elected Hamas govern¬ment. In fact, this action corresponds to a long standing practice of imprisoning and assassinating Palestinian political leaders from all sectors of Palestinian society, including elected members of local governments, student leaders and others.

Most discussions of Palestinian political prisoners have concentrated on prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza—territories occupied by the colonial regime in 1967. Prison¬ers from territories occupied in 1948 (often referred to as “Arab citizens of Israel”) have received considerably less attention. Some have been imprisoned for engaging in military resistance ac¬tivities, others for expressing support or developing organizational ties with Palestinian resistance organizations in the West Bank and Gaza.

Like Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza who are held in prisons within territories occupied in 1948, they are classified as “security prison¬ers,” and systematically discriminated against within the prison system.

In September of 2006, the Prisoners Supporters Society—with headquar¬ters in Majd Al-Krum—announced that these prisoners should be involved in any negotiations concern¬ing a prisoner exchange. The colonial regime responded by outlawing the organization, raiding and closing offices on both sides of the Green Line, and imprisoning several of its members.

Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada—which began with killing of 13 Palestinians protestors inside the Green Line—Zionist authorities have increasingly invoked Emergency Defense Regulations to criminalize Palestinians with “Israeli” citizenship who express support for Palestinians resisting in the West Bank and Gaza.

These actions correspond to a general pattern of suppressing movements that try to forge links between Palestinians resisting both ’48 and ’67 occupied zones in order to assert their full national rights as a people.

Steadfast in Resistance

Every family in Palestine experiences the effect of political imprisonment. Although “Israel” attempts to use prisoners as hostages to force Palestinians into surrendering their fundamental rights, the Palestinian people have remained steadfast in their support for resistance. When the Popular Resistance Committee captured a colonial occupation soldier near Gaza in June of 2006, Palestinian residents of Gaza – under aerial bombardment and a starvation blockade – held mass demonstrations demanding that the soldier not be released until the colonial regime agreed to a prisoner exchange.

For more information: Addameer: www.addameer.org
The Mandela Institute for Human Rights – Palestine: www.mandela-palestine.org
Women’s Organizations for Political Prisoners: www.wofpp.org

End of Discussion with a Jailer

From the window of my small cell
I can see trees smiling at me,
Roofs filled with my people,
Windows weeping and praying for me.
From the window of my small cell
I can see your larger cell.

Samih Al-Qasim, former Palestinian political prisoner

Statements from U.S. Political Prisoners In Support of Palestine

On the Occasion of A Commemoration of Black September And Palestinian Political Prisoners, Boston, September 17, 2006

From Rafael Cancel Miranda:

The Palestinian and Puerto Rican people have a lot in common. We are two nations under attack, who face the same aggressor, though he may be called by different names.

Having spent 28 years of my life in the Anglo prisons of the United States, I can easily understand the plight of the men, women and Children of Palestine who find themselves in Israeli prisons. As we all know, Israel is an Anglo spawn. It has often been said that societies are judged by the way they treat their prisoners. If that's the case, then we can conclude that the Anglo/U.S. and Israeli societies are extremely sadistic and demonic, given the crimes and tortures they've perpetrated against their prisoners. All the horror stories in the world are insufficient to convey the lack of humanity exhibited by these two aggressors, which are one and the same.

I admire the Palestinian people, because I know how much love and courage it takes to struggle with their determination. My people, the people of Puerto Rico are engaged in a similar struggle. I can say without fear of self deception that we will win; not only because truth and reason are on our side, but because we are ready to do whatever is necessary to secure the rights of our peoples.
Receive my strong embrace and solidarity with our brothers and sisters imprisoned in Palestine.

Palante
Rafael Cancel Miranda
San Juan Puerto Rico,
September 12, 2006
________________________________________
From Russell “Maroon” Shoats, a New Afrikan/Black Political Prisoner, to the Palestinian Political Prisoners:

Having joined the ongoing struggle for self-determination for Afrikans born in the United States in 1967, i was then and still am now inspired by the valiant people of Palestine.

Since then i’ve clearly come to learn that both of our struggles are connected by our people’s equal desires to be free.

So when you suffer, we suffer; when you make progress, we make progress; and when you win your freedom, we will also celebrate! Because in our hearts we too are Palestinians!

Ever forward to victory!
“Straight Ahead,”
Maroon
September 7, 2006

Russell “Maroon” Shoats, AF-3855
SCI Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090
________________________________________
From Marilyn Buck:

Greetings to all who stand for a fee, just, liberated Palestine. I was still an infant when Palestine was dismembered, hacked into pieces and driven off its land. It was 18 or 19 years thereafter before I heard that Palestine was alive, that there had not been the burial the imperialist and Zionist powers had hoped. Life coursed then as now through diaspora veins connecting the hearts of Palestinian people worldwide.

The will and resistance of the Palestinian people taught and inspired me along with other anti-imperialists and internationalists. I greet you and honor you who defend the Palestinian nation and its people. If only I could be present to embrace you, to stand beside you for your homeland.
Those who struggle for a lifetime are the bearers of the future!

Your sister in solidarity,
Marilyn Buck, U.S. anti-imperialist political prisoner

Marilyn Buck #00482-285
5701 8th St. Camp Parks B
Federal Correctional Institution
Dublin, CA 94568
________________________________________
From Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3:

To my Palestinian brothers and sisters. Herman Wallace and myself greet you from the belly of the beast! (Prison.)

We would so much rather be there in person, to honor your courage and determination against the zionist state of Israel!
For the last 35 years, we have watched the Palestinian people resist the genocide of Israel against the Palestinians while the western world and media tries to make the world see you as a people unfeeling, without love of family, or people of the world.

Your fight for the destiny and control of the Palestinian people’s future is both inspiring and courageous! The world must not rest until the Palestinian people has their own state, with sovereign rights and East Jerusalem as its capital! I salute your courage, I salute your sacrifice, I salute your determination, I salute your victory!

Sincerely,
Albert Woodfox
Angola #3!
September 7, 2006

Albert Woodfox #72148
CCR UB #3
Louisiana State Penitentiary
Angola, LA 70712
________________________________________
From Debbie Sims Africa of the MOVE 9:

The MOVE 9 are members of the revolutionary MOVE organization imprisoned since 1978 after a police assault on their headquarters in Powelton Village, Philadelphia. In 1985 the government dropped a bomb on the MOVE house on Osage Avenue in Philadelphia, killing 11 people, including 5 children.
Salute and solidarity to all our strong, loyal committed revolutionary sisters and brothers in Palestine.

The committed example that you continue to set in your country is being felt by all of us here in the USA too. The Move Organization is generating a united, revolutionary vibration to you and all political prisoners around the world through our unending fight for freedom and justice. We are linked together as one to confront and expose the demon intimidation tactics the oppressor uses to beat down and kill off the fighting spirit in all freedom fighters. We must keep fighting back, no matter what or how things may seem. We are obligated to show others the urgent need for change and guide them in the direction of revolution. We must never let ourselves be divided despite any so-call differences, because finally, we have the most important thing in common our fight against the enemy, the oppressor, the enslaver, this system, and any difference among us is secondary to that. What this system fears most is unity because they know unity is power. Power of the people is the key to bring this system to its knees.

We have committed our lives to revolution. Our men, women, children, our infants have lost their lives, they were murdered by this system. We know all of you have lost family, loved ones, and comrades too. The MOVE 9have been unjustly imprisoned for almost 30 years, we are innocent. But despite our innocence, we’ve been beat jailed and had family members murdered, not because we are guilty of any crime but because we stand up against this rotten, corrupt government and fight for what is right and because we expose these government officials, judges, and police for the diabolical monsters they are. We know all of you have suffered injustices there, the stories we’ve heard affect us personally and pushes us to fight harder, cause while we are located in different parts of the globe we understand and can relate to what you are going through. Stay strong my brothers and sisters and know that we will not let the lives of our family, your family, any freedom fighter be in vain. We will never stop fighting this system. The seed for this revolution is planted, and though we may not cross paths in our life time, our roots will be planted in the same soil. LONG LIVE ALL FREEDOM FIGHTERS LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!
Ona Move, MOVE

Debbie Sims Africa #506307
451 Fullerton Avenue
Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238
________________________________________
From Bill Dunne:

To Boston Jericho’s Black September Memorial

Salutations and solidarity to the participants in this commemoration of Black September, a landmark event in the history of popular resistance to exploitation and oppression!

The brutal suppression of the Palestinian people’s aspirations to self-determination by the Jordanian monarchy in September of 1970 is only incidentally an illustration of the inhumanity of the ruling class. History has shown us ad nauseam there is no limit to the murder and mayhem agencies of repression will inflict on the people in furtherance of their masters’ interests. Nor is the event more than incidentally a defeat. People were killed and injured and forced to leave their homes and communities and cast into poverty, and the objective of Palestinian liberation was not attained. The courage of the Palestinian people, however, was indelibly written in blood and their will was not broken.

The point, then, of remembering Black September is not to mourn the losses and condemn the oppression, though doing so goes without saying. It is to celebrate the spirit of the Palestinian people who would rise up for freedom nothwithstanding their long odds against armor and artillery and aircraft, who rise up in resistance to the depredations of king and capital, who rise up in continuing struggle against imperialist thuggery from one generation to another and yet another. Memory must not dwell on the price of pursuing life, liberty, and happiness. Instead, it must focus on affirmation of the indomitable consciousness that impels people to that pursuit and to accept nothing less. So acknowledge the tragedy of Black September, but commend and support the Palestinian commitment to justice and protracted struggle it represented. And let us hope it is contagious!

Moreover, we must extend that recognition and support to the Palestinian people’s current resistance to Israeli aggression. Their cause is our cause, ‘cause what is visited on them will eventually be visited on others of the oppressed class as soon as the oppressor class wants something they have. If we, through our silence, allow the visitation to be legitimized on Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon and the West Bank and the people with and among whom they’ve made their homes, we will hasten the time when those tactics are used against us.

The Palestine plight is not some far-away issue affecting only some “foreign” group. Contemplating my first thunderstorm in years as it raged across the patch of sky visible from the federal transit camp’s hole 7500 miles west of occupied Palestine, I could not escape images of the human-made thunder and lightening raining down on the people of South Lebanon and the much bloodier consequences thereof. Just because they were only images and not reality to me did nothing to ameliorate the atrocity—induced anger and sadness—or the uncomfortable knowledge I was and remain in the hands of the same government of little Eichmanns that enables and supports the slaughter of Palestinians and Lebanese by the Israeli military whose signs and sounds disturbed me in that remote dark concrete corner. That discomfort is only the thin edge of the wedge.

And I must also recognize you, who took time from your lives and your own struggles with the vagaries of life under late capitalism to recognize and support Palestinian resistance to oppression. Such is the way to realizing our human commonality, our rights as humans and the deprivation thereof. Such is the path to building true international solidarity against exploitation and oppression. Such is the road to revolution.

The future holds promise!

Bill Dunne
USP Big Sandy
7 September 2006

Bill Dunne
#10916-086
U.S.P. Big Sandy
PO Box 2068
Inez, KY 41224
________________________________________
From Byron Shane Chubbuck:

Greeting Brothers and Sisters of Earth
we are all connected we
are all related!
I love the Palestinian
people because they have the guts
and heart to stand up
against the greatest source of lies
on earth.
“The Zionist”
Tribesmen of Cain.
Those “brood of vipers” who
Seek to destroy sovereignty
on a global level. And fully
intend on destroying the will
of all arab peoples who refuse
to obey the World Banks, Central
Banking madness.

Stay Strong

warriors!
Fight tooth and
nail like
American Indian
Movements always have.
Stop at nothing
Time is very
limited now.

Love and respect
Oso Blanco de Aztlan.
[Byron Shane Chubbuck]

Byron Shane Chubbuck # 07909-051
USP Beaumont
P.O. Box 26030
Beaumont, TX 77720

________________________________________
From Jaan Laaman:

Freedom for Palestine

Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners

I salute this Benefit and all of you in attendance this Sunday night, in support of the thousands of Palestinian Political Prisoners, with real enthusiasm.

The Palestinian People's heroic struggle for the right to exist, to end Israeli occupation, and to have their own independent nation has been going on for such a long time. As a young man in the 1960s, it was the liberation struggles of people in Vietnam, South Africa, Ireland and Palestine that inspired and informed me and many others then. Here we are in the 21st century, with all the multilayered changes and advances the world has seen, and still the Palestinian people live as occupied and oppressed people.

The over 10,000 Palestinian Political Prisoners, which includes dozens of young teenagers, at least 100s of women, as well as thousands of men, suffer the most of all Palestinians. The Zionist Israeli security forces have long been notorious for mistreatment and even torture against Palestinians.

The majority of Palestinian people today have only known of life under Israeli military occupation, and often living in refugee camps. For the past 4 decades, year in - year out, there have always been thousands upon thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli prisons. Presently there are over 10,000 in captivity. Israeli prisons are hard, but the spirit and strength of the Palestinian Political Prisoners, their desire to free their nation of foreign occupation, with all the injustice, humiliation, and terror that the Israeli Zionist state inflicts on all of Palestine, remains firm and brilliant.

Political prisoners in America have long supported and stood in solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners and we continue to do so today. We know that you will create an independent Nation of Palestine. We salute you. We hope for your survival and we encourage people here in America to support you and the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

Free All Political Prisoners in Palestine!
Free All Political Prisoners in America!

Jaan Laaman
anti-imperialist political prisoner
Walpole state prison
Sept., 2006

Jaan Laaman (W87237)
P.O Box 100
South Walpole, MA 02071
________________________________________
From David Gilbert:

Israel’s apartheid-like occupation of Palestine is a most blatant and brutal violation of human rights. That reality combined with the courageous resistance there make the struggle a front-line in the world today. I urge everyone who is committed to humanity and to freedom to make support for Palestinian self-determination, including full and fair provisions for the needs and rights of all Palestinians in the diaspora, a top priority.

David Gilbert, 9/7/06
(Anti-imperialist political prisoner in the U.S.)

David Gilbert #83A6158
Clinton Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 2001
Dannemora, New York 12929
________________________________________
From Jalil Muntaqim:

Bismillah Ir Rahman Nir Raheem:

As Salaam Alaikum
Revolutionary Greetings Friends and Supporters:

It is my prayer this message finds all of you in the very best of health and continued high fighting spirits. Today, the Jericho Movement Boston Chapter joins with other progressive people and groups to acknowledge and honor the Palestinian Independence Movement in all of its various forms of struggle. For Jericho to join in sponsoring this event is to essentially extend the solidarity and support of all U.S. political prisoners, many of whom have been in prison over 3 decades. This solidarity speaks to an understanding of our fighting a common enemy, extending this understanding there continues to be a need to struggle in our mutual self-interest and political determination.

When different peoples, different oppressed peoples are fighting against the same enemy, then we need to recognize that solidarity means struggle. I can not truly be in solidarity with the Palestinian Independence Movement without being willing to engage and confront your enemy who is also my enemy. Our struggle is not divorced from yours, but rather our front line struggle is your rear front struggle, while your front line struggle is our rear front struggle. Hence, anti-imperialist and anti-zionist initiatives in the U.S. serve to free us from white supremacy and national oppression. Our fight against white supremacy and national oppression serves to free you of U.S. imperialism and proxy wars in support of zionism.

When we in North America fail to act, fail to confront and engage our common enemy we have betrayed you and our words of solidarity become empty and hollow. Therefore, it is the duty of political activist and progressive folks in this country to build a mass and popular movement that specifically challenges white supremacy and national oppression here. The struggle in the U.S. needs to grow and evolve in a consistent level of resistance that corresponds to—if not exceeds—the degree of oppression and reaction by U.S. imperialism.

Unfortunately, that is not happening here, and because of this failing, more Palestinians are dying who could have possibly been saved. Harsh truths, but truths none the less, and it is far time that progressive forces in the U.S. come to terms with this reality.

In this regard, and in terms of Jericho Amnesty Movement, I have recently proposed that for the 10th Year Anniversary of Jericho ’08, that Jericho organize a national conference, march and demonstration to be held in New York City. The theme of the national determination would be “When the U.S. Won’t—The World Will Recognize the Existence of U.S. Political Prisoners”. Ultimately, such a national determination will serve to demonstrate before the United Nations and the world the U.S. has political prisoners, and these political prisoners represent a legacy of struggle opposing U.S. imperialism, opposing white supremacy and opposing national oppression. By building and raising the issue of U.S. political prisoners onto the national debate and in the international community, we will be undermining and exposing U.S. imperialism and zionism, providing pragmatic support to those engaging U.S. imperialism around the world. Solidarity means struggle, and our struggle is united with those fighting our common enemy. But it will only be when we take responsibility, unite and fight for our own political prisoners, can we truly say we are in solidarity with any other peoples’ fighting our common enemy. We are on the front lines, and our captured and confined are front line activists which Jericho has sought to represent in a national determination.

Therefore, I ask all those attending this event to join with Jericho in support of this proposal for the 10th Year Anniversary of Jericho, to tell the world we join them in solidarity by continuing the fight here, asking them to condemn U.S. imperialism for its inhumane treatment of U.S. political prisoners.

When we strengthen our resolve and capacity to confront U.S. imperialism here, we will in essence be unified with the Palestinian peoples in their war against U.S. imperialism and zionism in Palestine. Let our solidarity be more than words or financial gratuity, when failing to provide same support for our own U.S. political prisoners. Rather, when we fight to free and liberate our own, we will weaken our common enemy ensuring our comrades overseas are better able to be victorious in their many and varied battles. That would truly be solidarity in the meaning of struggle.

Mas Salaam—
Remember—We Are Our Own Liberators!

Jalil Muntaqim #77A4283
Auburn Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 618
135 State Street
Auburn, NY 13024
________________________________________
From Hanif Shabazz Bey:

September 13, 2006

The recent Zionist aggression in which the world witnessed Israeli war planes drop cluster bombs on helpless Lebanese children was precipitated by the U.S. government’s greed for oil, as the attack was actually staged so the U.S. and Zionist Israel can secure control over the Eastern Mediterranean coastline for the shipping of millions of barrels of oil, now coming out of the recently inaugurated “BTC” pipeline.

The Balfour Declaration in 1918 was invoked to quench the imperialist thirst for land and oil, as was the European incursion in 1948.

The erecting of the Apartheid Wall in occupied Palestine, in an effort to stifle the economical livelihood of the Palestinian people is not seen as an emblem of power, but rather as a harbinger of weakness. It also shows the Zionist fear and lack of confidence, and serves as a reminder of the strength and resolve of the spirit within the Palestinian populace.

All the freedom loving people of the world are inspired by the Palestinian Resistance to imperialist aggression for the past 100 years. In time the world Intifada will escalate and drive imperialism from the face of the earth.

We stand with you and we support your efforts.

In solidarity,

Hanif Shabazz Bey
S/N Gereau #295933
Wallensridge State Prison
P.O. Box 759
Big Stone Gap, VA 24219

________________________________________
From Herman Bell:

To the Palestinian people, their political prisoners and detainees held in israeli jails. To our brothers and sisters in struggle, we u.s. political prisoners and prisoners of war extend greetings and solidarity and commend you for your stout-hearted resistance to zionist occupation of your land. Your dogged resolve to expel them is admired and respected more than ever. We recognize your plight and honor your historic resistance to this occupation and aggression.
Across the border from you—in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in mother Afrika, and in the belly of the beast itself, the same war against u.s. imperialist designs and its quest for global domination wages on. And at every turn babies cry, and mothers grieve; and sons, daughters, husbands and wives are martyred. In Gaza, a family of beach goers is cut down by zionist tank shells as they recline on a lonely stretch of sand to catch some sun and much needed respite from the stress of bombs, tanks, and overflying warplanes. On a war-torn street in the West Bank, captured by television before a global audience, the figures of a father and son are riddled with bullets as they huddled desperately behind the shelter of a wooden barrel from withering zionist firepower.

After a long train of abuses, people reject injustices and they eventually respond aggressively. This is what usually creates political prisoners and prisoners of war and is why we gather here at this time to honor and immortalize your implacable spirit in tenaciously resisting zionist occupation of your homeland. Therefore, as you have ably demonstrated, we categorically reject the prescribed reality of long suffering and acceptance of our plight served up by the forces of power and greed. Our vision is one that dank prison cells, truncheons, electrodes, waterboarding and the like cannot hope to alter or forestall. To coin a phrase: “we claim no easy victories and tell no lies.” And we shall remain a vigilant and firm supporter of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, as we stay the course in our own struggle ‘til victory is won.

In solidarity,

Herman Bell, DIN 7960262
Sullivan Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 116
Fallsburg, New York 12733-0116
________________________________________
From Sundiata Acoli:

September 6, 2006

Greetings, Bros, Sisters and Comrades,

It’s good to see you all honoring Palestinian freedom fighters. They have long borne the main brunt of the fight against u.s. imperialism in the Mid-East. They are doing there what we who want freedom should be doing here—and one day will do here. Meanwhile i send my warmest solidarity to the Palestinian political prisoners and may we continue to struggle in solidarity until we and all oppressed people are free worldwide!

In struggle and solidarity,

Sundiata Acoli #39794-066
(Squire) P.O. Box 3000
USP Allenwood
White Deer, PA 17887
________________________________________
From Bashir Hameed:

Bismallah ir Rahman ir Raheem
As Salaamu Alaykum,

I would like to express my solidarity with my Palestinian sisters and brothers around the world in memory of both Black September and their continuous heroic struggle being waged by them around the world.

Their intifadas and ceaseless struggle against the forces of oppression are an inspiration to us all and all peace loving people the world over.

I salute you all and I pray that Allah will continue to guide, bless and reward us all. Be well and continue to intensify our struggle.

In solidarity,

Bashir Hameed #82A6313
Great Meadow Prison, P.O. Box 51
Comstock, NY 12821

Interview with Leila Khaled, Imperialism’s two failures: Iraq and Lebanon

from www.workers.org
October 19, 2006

Palestinian resistance leader Leila Khaled in 1972

Following are excerpts from an interview conducted with Palestinian resistance leader Leila Khaled by Samia Halaby of the Defend Palestine Coalition, LeiLani Dowell of Workers World newspaper, and Sara Flounders of the International Action Center during a fact-finding delegation to Lebanon Sept. 11-17.

Q: In Gaza during the time [of the war on Lebanon], the offensive was very heavy.

Leila Khaled: It was more intense in Gaza because all the focus was on Lebanon. Israel has done three massacres, big massacres, in the north of Gaza, where they destroyed everything and it’s now an isolated area.

They call the people in their houses and tell them: “We’re going to bombard the house, leave it. You have half an hour to leave.” So people leave. They wait and wait, but no bombardment. They go back to the house and stay there for one week, and then it is bombarded, and they are killed.

So whenever people receive such a call, they leave, but when they see that the house is still there, they go back. Again, they call them: “We told you to leave, why are you still here? You have five minutes to leave now. We gave you half an hour last time, now it’s five minutes.” Some did not believe that they wanted to bombard the houses, and they stayed there, and they were killed.

This is the way they deal with the Palestinians in Gaza. It’s terrible. Anytime I call our comrades there, they say, “They are turning our lives into hell.” Gaza is a very small area, densely populated, wherever they hit they will kill, and destroying the houses means that the people cannot find anywhere else to live. There are tents there now; this is during the last three years. The borders are closed, people cannot receive any kind of aid, even the money; if you want to send money for them, there are new laws at the banks.

In Gaza, they want the people to starve, and to be killed, and to reach to the extent that they would say, “Any solution, we accept it.”

In Lebanon they distributed the pamphlets from the airplanes, saying that Hezbollah is not for you, Hezbollah is working for Iran and not for you. This is the psychological war also. But the people were not responding to them.

Why do you think the Israelis stopped bombing Lebanon?

This time they lost, because this is the first time they witnessed rockets going into the cities in Israel. From the first week, they were bombarding Lebanon and Hezbollah was retaliating by bombarding the cities and the villages. One and a half million Israelis left the Galilee. I called my relatives and they said this is the first time in 58 years that they are going and leaving.

What are the dangers now? What’s likely to happen next?

This war I think is a turning point in the area, because Israel cannot again launch another war. Yesterday there were demonstrations in Tel Aviv for an investigation committee. This is the sixth war with the Arabs, but this is the first time that they felt they could be hurt.

I think that although we know very well that Hezbollah is supported by Syria and Iran, I think that this is legitimate also. Why not have allies in the area? Israel has the most powerful country supporting it.

I think politically they will try to make big contradictions in Lebanon itself, on the governmental level, on the parliamentarian level, but they cannot do that on the mass level, because people—even those who lost their sons or husbands—they say it’s for our land, and they have this ideology that they are fighting for their land. We have seen many people on the ruins of these houses, and they say, “Okay, we can rebuild them, it’s not the first time.” They say, “We know the enemy, it’s not the first time.”

I did not mention that all the Lebanese people showed high solidarity with the displaced, in different parts of Lebanon, where there are Christians, the Druze. The majority Shia cities were all bombarded, so people fled to the other neighborhoods, and this was the first time that we have witnessed this unity among the people. There was not criticism against Hezbollah or the Shia sect during the war.

But during the war, the Palestinians came out from the camps and were asking the Lebanese to come and live with them in their houses in the camps. And Lebanese people were telling the media, this time we knew that we have brothers and sisters there. The Palestinians say this is our duty, all the time the Lebanese protected us, and it’s time for us to do our duty towards them when they are in danger.

They bombarded around the camps but not in the camps. They don’t want anything to unite the Lebanese and the Palestinians. They selected targets outside the camps, and not inside the camps.

Some people have said that this was a test by the U.S. to see how the reaction would be on the ground from an attack on Syria and Iran.

I myself don’t expect that the U.S. administration could attack Iran. In Iraq, America failed to establish what they wanted from the war. They are taking the oil, but not in an easy way.

At least in the near future, I don’t see that Israel is going to do the work again. But of course, such an administration, they are crazy enough to do anything. Now what they are trying to do is to catch the Middle East from both sides, from Iraq and Sudan. They tried to hit in Lebanon, not as a test, but as a weak point in the area, but they failed.

Now in Israel there’s discussion and criticism of the political level and the military institution. We know always that the military institution is the real government of Israel, and not the political level, although historically speaking the generals were always the prime ministers of Israel. This time Olmert or Peretz wanted to prove themselves as generals, but they did not, and so there’s big discussion and a big split in Israel.

Some observers said that Israel played this war on the expense of the Americans, played it, but they failed. Now, these two failures, in Iraq and in Lebanon, I think won’t let them think of another war. And now in Afghanistan it’s coming up again.

As a Marxist, how do you view Hezbollah?

Hezbollah came out from the Amal movement, which was established in the 1980s. The Shia in Lebanon were always dealt with as a minority, very oppressed and the poorest people. Hezbollah came out in 1987 because they had many contradictions with the leadership of Amal. They had a new vision towards how to deal with Lebanon and with Israel. And they have this principle: that we have to resist on the popular level.

They learned the lessons from mistakes that we, as Palestinians in Lebanon, made. They didn’t show their weapons, as we used to do. We had open bases in the South; they didn’t do that. They did not have training camps; nobody knows where they were trained. They’re very well organized people. We had people with their arms and uniforms in the South and the cities, anyone could tell that they were fighters. Now nobody knows who is a fighter.

After the cease-fire, when Nasrallah called the people to go back to the South, we were that morning in one of the schools with the displaced people. That afternoon they were carrying their things and going. We asked them, “Where are you going?” and they said, “We are going to our villages, although the roads are very dangerous, cluster bombs are still there, some of these unexploded rockets.” The people—I’m talking about the people— are very well disciplined. They went directly, and they said, “Our leadership asked us to go.”

This shows that the relation between Hezbollah and the people is very strong, and people feel that it is for their benefit and for their interest, although there are some villages totally leveled, and some where even the houses that remain are not useful for living.

Hezbollah considers itself a part of the resistance in the area against the common enemy, against Israel, against America. This they declare every time, and they called for talks with different groups, and they went for the talks. There were many, many sessions before the war.

The party is very well organized and trained and to the masses they have a strong relation. Every house in the South feels that this party is as their sons, as their daughters. They have schools, medical centers, training centers. Now many of the schools are destroyed, but they’re going to rebuild.

Just after the war, Nasrallah declared that they are going to compensate the people, so that they can live in dignity. I think it’s a culture, for all human beings to live with dignity. And he stresses that—now we have won the war, although the country was destroyed, but we kept our dignity, we are free people. He speaks to the people, to their minds and their hearts at the same time.

There are political parties in the area, especially in Lebanon, who said why can’t we live in peace with Israel? Now this war showed that it’s very difficult to coexist with them, and this is very dangerous, because we, as Palestinians, from the very beginning called for a one-state solution, that Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Christians can live all together peacefully on the same land and on a democratic basis. This is our vision to the end of this conflict, but we have seen that still the Israeli society is not ready for that.

Iran has a religious ideology, which I feel is dangerous. But when it comes to resisting the imperialist projects in the area, you don’t speak about ideology, you speak about resistance. Resistance is the concept, whether the origin of it is religious or not. That’s why they targeted Hezbollah, because it’s a resisting group.

Real, Imperialist Wars and Phony Excuses

by René González Sehwerert
www.freethefive.org

Editor's Note:

The following essay by Rene Gonzales, one of the Cuban 5, was written as a response to a rather typical pro-imperialist, pro-war, anti-muslim article by a retired U.S. general, Vernon Chong.

In answering to friend's invitation to comment on "This WAR is for REAL!", by Dr Vernon Chong, Maj Gen, USAF, Retired, I'd like to start by saying that I'm not opposed to "wars in general". I would say that, for example, the American War of Independence was a just war, as were the Vietnamese wars against Japanese occupation, French colonization and, finally, American aggression. Being a Cuban imprisoned in the United States for fighting terrorism I have to say, of course, that I'm proud of the popular war fought by my people, 50 years ago, against the US backed criminal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

To be honest, I don't understand the difference between "real" and "unreal" wars. I'm sure that the Vietnam war is still very real to both the Vietnamese and Americans who are today suffering from exposure to Agent Orange. For the thousands of Iraqis buried and dehumanized under the generic term of "collateral damage", the suffering is as real as it is for the American soldiers sent to kill and to be killed, in the name of greed, under sorry, phony excuses.
Maybe the difference between just and unjust wars lies there, on the excuses. If it is true that every war is real, the same can't be said about the excuses for imperialist, expansionist wars. One of those is the one defended by General Chong, now under the sorry excuse of fighting terrorism.

Phony excuses need to be backed by selective memory. So the author starts, very conveniently, on 1979, as if out of the blue a mob of crazy Iranians had decided to take a bunch of hostages from an unknown, oblivious place somewhere on earth.

Without having to go back as far as to Genesis, Mr Chong could have gone back a little bit to 1953 when an elected, secular government under Prime Minister Mohamed Mossadegh, was in charge there. Mr Mossadegh wasn't a terrorist and was even at odds with the Communists -at those times the bogy that was labeled, as today Mr Chong does with the Muslims, "the most serious threat to the existence of our country...in your life time and mine".. The crime of Mr Mossadegh was to believe that Iranian oil -yes, that which lies below the surface of Iran-, belonged to the Iranians. So he was swiftly taken away by the CIA in complicity with Mohamed Reza Phalevi, whose brutal reign of 25 years pushed Islam into the political vacuum created on Iranian civil society.

Many things happened between 1953 and 1979 -both with some Muslim connection or otherwise. By the first year the US government had already installed bloody dictators Somoza, Stroessner, Trujillo and Duvalier on Nicaragua, Paraguay, Dominican Republic and Haiti, respectively. In 1954 the Iranian scheme was repeated against elected Guatemalan president Arbenz, overthrown by Castillo Armas with the support of the CIA, which by the early sixties would send some anti Castro mercenaries to help Mobutto in Zaire while applying "regime changes" against elected governments in Brazil and Uruguay. Closely would follow the support for the genocide committed by Suharto in Indo¬nesia against -as Mr Bush likes to say today- "his own people". By 1973 Augusto Pinochet, another US friend, would, go as far as to killing elected Chilean president Allende, and one year later Suharto would extend his genocide towards Timor. No problem.

By the time Muslim friend Suharto was committing his genocide in Asia, Christian friends in the West were applying their training from The School of the Americas on their own people through "Operation Condor", an international scheme of state terrorism designed to -it can be assumed by its viciousness-, find the "final solution" to the proliferation of leftist ideas in Latin America. Meanwhile, in Africa, the white supremacist troops of the South African regime found support in the US government to invade Angola, plunging the country in a war that went well beyond 1979, the year in which -according to General Chong-, the phenomena of terrorism seems to have been discovered.

Of course, we can also follow the lead and discover the world in 1979. After all, history didn't stop there either. We can remember that, by the early 80's, those same Muslims that today seem so evil were Reagan's "freedom fighters" while committing the same crimes in Afghanistan. Anti terrorist scruples were also set aside while the Iran Contra scheme was taking place, circumventing US laws to impose terrorism on Nicaragua while, alas!!!, John Negroponte was running a murdering cartel of death squadrons in neighboring Honduras. Well, at least we can't complain about the qualifications of one of our top bullies when it comes to this phony war on terrorism.

So, lets face it. The plutocracy which runs this country has been picking up on other people, without regards to religion, since well before the first American saw a Muslim face to face. There is one unique, common link between all and every act of aggression by the US government throughout its entire history: To defend corporate greed, and to expand the control of both human and natural resources by US capital all over the planet.

Playing the same old motto of "either them or us" has been very effective through centuries. Be it the Indians, the Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Hawaiians, the Haitians, the Dominicans, the Koreans or the Vietnamese; one has to wonder a- to-how many of them cared for or about the United States before an American soldier stormed into their village or an American bomb blew any of them apart; but playing the scare game always works, and by attributing to the victims their own expansionist, violent, conquering mentality the aggressor always finds justification. Now it is time for the Muslims. Muslim scare time!!!.
And phony excuses call for funny explanations: They envy our position, our success, and our freedoms!!!. Nice and easy!. It must be very rewarding to be told that you are superior and better just by having been born someplace. It doesn't take too much thinking to accept it.

Something like that was told by Hitler to the German people, in those years when American and English capital were helping him to rearm with the hopes of throwing him against, the Soviets in an adventure that ended up costing fifty million human lives. Mr Chong fails to mention that before focusing the world on the Jews his primary focus was against Communists whom he accused -another phony excuse- of having burned the Reichstag.

Mr Chong also fails to notice that -like the German people of the 30's- the Americans of today are predominantly peaceful Christians subjected to a barrage of chauvinism, militarism, scare tactics and lies. The overwhelming trash thrown at their faces every day in the form of commercials, "entertainment", violence, biased news reports, video games, americanism and stupid movies would be the envy of Goebbels. It's all designed to isolate them from reality, to distort the world in their eyes, hinder their capacity for analysis, obliterate any intellectual curiosity, make them fearful of each other and sow distrust toward other peoples. The ultimate goal is to make them easy to manipulate, so when the time comes they would accept any excuse for the next war. And, of course, they would put up the cannon fodder.

Needless to say, terrorism is evil and criminal. It is a social and political ailment to be faced, but I don't find any serious solution on the article by Mr Chong.
First of all, the article is T00000 self serving. I don't see how a government which has sponsored so much terrorism -including some under Muslim guise-, can lead any war against terrorism. Either you are against EVERY SORT OF TERRORISM or a hypocrite; which disqualifies anybody to be "the last bastion of defense" against terrorism.

You can't support the massive state terrorism by Israel and condemn the desperate actions by a Palestinian terrorist. You can't condemn Al-Qaeda now for committing the crimes you helped them to commit before. You can't help a handful of military dictators disappear thousands of human beings throughout Latin America and claim to be against terrorism. You can't "discover" now the crimes committed by Hussein twenty years ago, at the time he was your ally, and claim to be offended by such crimes. You can't protect and harbor anti-Castro terrorists, allowing them to live peacefully in Miami, having them even on an occasional TV show, sometimes in the company of -FBI officials, and claim to be fighting terrorism.

The fight against terrorism requires principles. You can't stimulate a criminal behavior because, in your eyes, it helps achieve some short term goal, and later expect restraint from the criminal you unleashed before. That's a receipt for tragedy from Hitler to Al-Qaeda.

By reading Mr Chong's words one might be tempted to accept that Islamic civilization has been the most violent in history if it wasn't because they are only second to....Christians!!!, who have killed more people per square foot than anybody else. But the truth is that neither Islam nor Christianity are intrinsically evil or violent. Well before Jesus the Middle East and Europe had been inter¬acting violently and changing blows between each other; and every religion was used as a tool in the hands of other, more earthly interests.

And there is where the problem lies. On the petty interests of powerful minorities being imposed on humanity through centuries. Slave owners, emperors, kings and now a bunch of corporate capitalists have used religion, race or nationality to push peoples against each other at will. Every enterprise of conquer has come with its God, always superior to the God of the conquered; and the trick has worked so well that humanity still has to put up with it.

The notion of "either them or us" won't solve any global problem. The planet is too small and the only way for a peaceful future lies on the notion of "either all or none". No good will come from narrow internationalism either. To be what Mr Chong calls the "premier country of the world" has been the dream of every empire, turned later into a nightmarish demise. The implosion of such experiments comes from the demoralization of having to impose, by force, their own narrow interests, to so many peoples, for so long.

Sincerely speaking, to expect for the American plutocracy to be "the last line of defense" for a better world, and to cling my hopes on their success over other brands of terrorism, is having to chose between two equal evils. Every sinister design out of the ones attributed by Mr Chong to the Muslims -"they will pick off the other nations, one at a time"..."the attacks will npt subside, but rather will increase"..."we would of course have no future support from other nations, for fear of reprisals"..and so on-, can perfectly be applied if General Chong's side has it its own way.

The best line of defense against terrorism lies, in my opinion,on the factor which Mr Chong diminishes as "peaceful people". Peaceful people are in the majority be it in Germany, in the United States or in Iraq. Peaceful Christians, Muslims or Jews have more in common than what they have with the privileged of their own brand who manipulate them. Americans are as poorly represented by the gang of billionaires that runs this country for their own profits, as poorly represented the Muslims are by Bin Laden.

When peaceful people start to relate to each other as equals, accepting their differences and recognizing each other in their common humanity; Muslims, Christians, Jews or Atheists will be able to live in peace side by side; but before that all of them have to get rid of some powerful, selfish, ruthless, greedy warmonger intermediaries. That would be a war worth fighting.
I hope some day the American people will open their eyes and join in. When they start relating to the rest of the world as they really are, they won't have to worry about looking arrogant. They'll have no problem to win hearts and minds by their humanity, humbleness, hard working spirit and virtues. They will also laugh when remembering the culture of fear imposed on them nowadays.
As to those who honestly worry about terrorism, I have good news. Terrorism will never win be it American, anti-American, Zionist, Muslim or otherwise. Terrorism is too brutal and will always alienate most of the people. It is too short sighted, irrational and criminal as to withstand the test of history.
And if any proof is needed there is Latin America, rising up again for its sovereignty, justice and dignity after a whole generation was decimated by more than a decade of US sponsored state terrorism.

There is also Cuba, a tiny island facing the longest war of attrition by the most formidable empire and whose courageous, peace loving people, all as one regardless of religion or race, has been able to build the society of its choosing through more than four decades of aggression and terrorism.

As I said before, all it takes is principles.
July 13, 2006

René González Sehwerert
#58738-004
FCI Marianna
P.O. Box 7007
Marianna, FL 32447-7007

Political Prisoners in the United States

by Jaan Laaman

There are about 100 political prisoners in various prisons across America. These women and men are listed and recognized as political prisoners by numerous Human Rights, Legal Defense and progressive/socialist organizations. These people all come from the Civil Rights/Black Power/New African Liberation struggles, the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, Indigenous Peoples survival struggles, Chicano/Mexicano Movement,anti-imperialist/anti-war movements, anti-racist/anti-fascist struggles, the Women's Movement, social and economic justice struggles, and especially in the past several years, from the Environmental/Animal Rights Movement. They are Black, white, Latino and Native American. Most of these political prisoners have been in captivity since the 1970's and 80's. Some were convicted on totally fabricated charges, others for nebulous political conspiracies or for acts of resistance. All received huge sentences for their political beliefs or actions in support of these beliefs.

Additionally there are many thousands of revolutionary minded politically conscious prisoners in U.S. jails. These are people who became more politically aware and active once they landed in prison. A lot of these prisoners also get singled out for extra harsh and restrictive treatment like the political prisoners. Since 9/11, the U.S. has also imprisoned thousands of Arab and Muslim visitors to this country, as well as some Islamic citizens and residents.

The U.S. government likes to deny that it holds political prisoners. The harsh punitive conditions of confinement, often in special "control unit type" prisons, that political prisoners face day in, day out, decade after decade, exposes and refutes this government myth. Not only does America hold political prisoners, but they are being held under longer sentences than any kind of prisoners, anywhere in the world! Despite this, these women and men remain committed to their communities, movements and principles. As best as they can, through their voices and very lives, they continue to uphold the politics of justice, equality and liberation, especially for the poor and working class people throughout the world. Political prisoners in the United States want and need your awareness and support.

VENCEREMOS!
Jaan Laaman Ohio 7 anti-imperialist political prisoner
Jan. 2006, Walpole State Prison

The following are organizations that do support work for political prisoners in the U.S.:

Jericho Movement
P.O. Box 650
New York, NY 10009 USA
www.thejerichomovement.com

Partisan Defense Committee
P.O. Box 99
Canal Street Station
Ney York, NY 10013 USA

ABC Federation
P.O. Box 11223
Whittier, CA 90603 USA
www.abcf.net

The Psychological Effects of Imprisonment

by Ali Khalid Abdullah

The psychological effects of being in prison is one that many psychologists, behavioral scientists and social workers have been studying for some time in order to measure or gage the mental condition of one who has spent a considerable number of years behind bars. There is ample literature out to suggest there is a psychological impairment that takes place from – incarceration. The longer one is imprisoned and the condition in which that person lives under while incarcerated, determines the amount or degree of psychological damage that individual has incurred.

As one who is a prisoner and who has a bachelors degree in Behavioral Science, it doesn't take much for me to know that there are psychological negatives from long-term incarceration, albeit acute or subtle. My being in prison a number of years has seen the damage long-term incarceration can do, including what I have noticed of my own psychological difference — not all necessarily for the better. In fact, I "know" I have some psychological damage because of the endless tension, frustration, harassment, stress and strain of everyday living in an abnormal environment among thousands of different personalities and behaviors. Included among these are the court sanctioned oppressive and repressive behaviors of the prisoncrats.

There are times when my mental state is, in my mind, sound, while there are other times when I fall into such a deep depression that I feel I am never going to recover. This angers me, because when I fall into that depression there is no one for me to go to for relief. Yet, through the years I have learned to channel my negative energies and psychological damages or impairment into areas of constructiveness rather than destruction, which is perhaps, why I do a lot of reading, studying and free thinking. Free thinking is the ability to let your mind and your thoughts float and go as they desire without conscious interference. In other words, without guiding your thoughts to any structural format or form, as we normally would do. Free thinking allows me to unleash without shame or guilt, thoughts that are floating in my mind. I have found that when I allow myself to 'free think' I am much more relaxed afterwards and more energized because there is no energy being expended. But this is not the case for many. For many, the anger and tension within is so tight and compressed that once exploded there are usually serious consequences to the individual or to others.

One of the things that I have suffered and learned to adapt to a little, but still find hard to deal with, is the light being in my face at night. A constant dull light that glows in my face and no matter how much I try to blot that light out, it has become a part of my psyche to where if I do not have the light I cannot sleep. And I never really sleep. Not like the non-incarcerated sleeps. For many in prison we must "half sleep." That is, never go in to a sleep that you cannot immediately wake up at the slightest unfamiliar movement or sound, because that is a survival mode or mechanism one automatically acquires while in prison. Thus, I do not know what it is like to have a real deep sleep anymore. My mind has been conditioned and reinforced not to sleep in the normal fashion. That is an abnormality that prison life offers to the incarcerated.

Also, my being viewed and hated as a political prisoner or consciously active person by prison officials is not a thing one can live down once prison officials recognize who you are. Thus, you are and become a target for them at all, times. You must mind your "ps and qs" or you will fall and fall hard. You must be ever sensitive to many things those on the outside would not be as sensitive too. But prison sharpens your senses because this also becomes a survival tool, but make no mistake about it, prisons are designed to destroy you; to destroy the personality of your "self" and leave you broken and dependent. Political prisoners of any kind and jailhouse lawyers are targets for prison officials because you are presumed a threat. A threat because of your knowledge or because your thinking is different from others and you aren't likely to be intimidated by petty tactics. And so they (prisoncrats) design things especially for the ones whose wills remain unbroken.

Just look how long they have held in prison, many political prisoners in Amerikkka. Many of them are languishing on death row or in solitary confinement for well over 25 years. Some have been in such conditions for even longer than that. Not because they are a threat physically, but because they have not been broken down mentally, psychologically or spiritually and so they pose a danger to an element that must have complete control. Control of your body, the food you eat, the clothes you wear and the type of health care you receive (if you receive any). But they also want the absolute prize of control, which is your mind and/or your soul, and I am not inclined to give that away to any human being.

I have seen men, strong men, breakdown and become a shell of who they once were due to the type of psychological warfare placed upon them. I knew a man whose mother had passed. The prisoncrats refused to allow him to have funeral visit, or to even visit his mother in the hospital before she passed, even though guards would have been with him and his family who have paid an extortional price to the department of corrections for him to have such a visit, and even though he met the criteria to attend such a visit, they still refused him. That was the beginning of this man's psychological downfall to where he fell so low he is now a walking zombie on an, assortment of tranquilizers.

Society does not think of these atrocities because they are not readily known, nor are all the ramifications of prison life and what we endure. Further, the average human being does not want to believe that another human being would be so cruel and so sadistic as to torture and mangle other humans who are helpless, whether it be physical, psychological or spiritual. Yet that is the reality those of us in prison all too well know exists in many varying ways.

Amerikkka has a "lock em up" mentality that does not open its hand to rehabilitation anymore. It is all about punishment and warehousing to the highest degree. But such treatment only creates ticking time bombs that will one day be back in society and living as your neighbor.

To a large degree I feel fortunate because I have been able to survive many traumas during my incarceration thanks to having some outside help and support through the years. This is something many do not have. That is why it is imperative that you -- the public -- take an active role in learning about prisons and what prisoners endure, and even give critical thought to what role prisons really play and its effectiveness. As I have stated earlier, the vast majority of prisoners will be coming back out in society and it would seem that you would want to know, or have some kind of vested interest in what kind of person you will have walking and Living around you.

The psychological effects of imprisonment are real and serious. If we want to have a healthy nation, then it is up to the people -- the public in general, to think about how to deal with the problem of warehousing human beings and the kind of treatment they are receiving inside Amerikkka's prison system.

This article was originally written and presented to the International Human Rights Initiative for the "From Attica to Abu Ghraib" conference in April 2005, in
Berkeley, California.

Ali Khalid Abdullah (148130)
Mound Correctional Facility
17601 Mound Road
Detroit, MI 48212

Amerikan Prisons Are Government Sponsored Torture

by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, Minister of Defense, NABPP-PC

Most people don't quite relate US prisons to government-sponsored torture. We can thank the mainstream corporate media and politicians for this. Since the 1960s and 1970s they've persistently projected the false image of US prisons as resorts where criminal predators eat chips, lift weights, and watch videos all day, much like the images given of slavery as an experience that Black folks actually enjoyed. These false images are sustainable because the real world of prisons is a hidden one, concealed behind walls and razor wire, inaccessible to the public.

There's also a connection between prison and slavery. The plantation system actually merged with the penitentiary system after the Civil War and the torture and savagery, especially beatings, remained a mainstay. In fact at the end of the Civil War slavery was for the first time authorized by the US constitution in the 13th amendment, which authorized the government to treat convicts as slaves. So the newly "freed" Blacks were simply targeted with criminal prosecutions and then placed right back into bondage to serve as contract laborers, on chain gangs, and on prison plantations. Today, in a mad rush to find cheap labor, corporate Amerika looks to prisons to serve as a source of free labor pools. But let's look at torture.

Brutality and torture are the common features of US prisons. Nothing coming out of Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib has matched the images that showed the savage torture of prisoners following the Attica uprising in 1971. And what about California's Corcoran state prison where guards set up fights between prisoners, gambled on the outcomes and then shot the prisoners for fighting? Some 43 were shot and 8 killed just between 1989 and 1994. Others were shot and killed with no justification. Then there's the decades-long torture of some 135 New Afrikan (Black) males inside "Area 2" of Chicago's jail. The exposure of the false confessions resulting from this torture led to the removal of 164 men from Illinois's death row and, in four cases, the granting of full pardons. These are documented situations.

As during slavery, sexual abuse by officials in US prisons is prevalent.' There has long been a nationwide scandal surrounding women prisoners being raped by male guards.2 Then there's the sexual humiliation attendant to abusive strip searches, which are often accompanied by degrading verbal abuse. All this is exacerbated by complete denial of voluntary heterosexual relations. And there's a genocidal component to this and to the vast targeting of virile-aged youth of color for lengthy imprisonments where they cease to be able to reproduce – and in an environment where HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis abound while preventive aid is nonexistent and medical care substandard to nonexistent.

But there's a higher grade of torture. After World War H western governments established an aversion to physical torture, which they embodied in the charter and treaties of their newly established United Nations. This was brought on by the embarrassment and guilt of the Allied Western nations who had stood by passively while the German Nazis tortured and conducted gruesome experiments on Jews and other Germans (disabled people, dissidents) as well as Slays, Poles, and Gypsies.3 On account of this, the newly established CIA became very interested in developing less physically evident methods of mentally breaking and brainwashing enemies. As a result, the CIA and the Defense Department funded several studies with independent, Harvard University, National Institute of Mental Health, and other psychiatrists and psychologists.

These studies led to breakthrough developments in the art of torture that focused primarily on psychological methods and produced revolutionary effects with a consistency never seen before under physical torture. What the CIA learned was that states of mental disorder, collapse, capitulation, and psychosis could be produced in a victim by use of seemingly benign and harmless methods, namely, sensory deprivation and "self-inflicted pain," coupled with attacks on cultural sensitivities and personal phobias.4

Sensory deprivation alone proved effective against and torturously traumatic to its victims. As CIA researcher Dr. Albert Biderman discovered, "the effect of isolation on the brain function of the prisoner is much like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved, or deprived of sleep."' He found that normal brain function was severely impaired if a person is deprived of the complex sensory stimulation of normal social environments. In fact, the CIA's Harvard psychiatrists found that "sensory deprivation can produce major mental and behavioral changes in man," and produces psychosis more naturally and consistently than drugs and physical torture. The equally effective opposite extreme to sensory deprivation is sensory overload, where the victim is bombarded with loud noises, bright light, noxious odors, etc.

The CIA embodied the findings of these and other studies in its 1963 torture manual "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation," where it confirmed that:
1. the deprivation of sensory stimuli induces stress;
2. the stress becomes unbearable for most subjects;
3. the subject has a growing need for physical and social stimuli; and
4. some subjects progressively lose touch with reality, focus inwardly, and produce delusions, hallucinations, and other pathological effects.

The second feature of mental torture the CIA developed was "self-inflicted pain," where the victim is forced to remain in physically and/or mentally painful positions and conditions (called "stress positions"), which he is told will end upon his cooperation with his captors. This causes the victim to feel he is the cause of his own pain, thus making him the master of his fate. So long as he resists, he will suffer, but as soon as he cooperates his sufferings will instantly stop.

The last two methods, which were developed later, target the victim's cultural sensitivities and personal phobias: for example, destroying, degrading, or flushing a Muslim detainee's Qur'an, forcing him to commit acts that violate his religion like engaging in or simulating homosexual acts, masturbating in front of "strange" women, also exposing him to things he fears like dogs, etc.
These four techniques were apparent in the photographic images coming out of US military prisons at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Prisoners hooded, goggled, ear-muffed, and gloved to shut out sensory stimulation; having their senses assaulted with loud noises and music; being forced to remain in painful positions (kneeling or standing at length, forced to keep arms outstretched), etc. Those who saw some of the images of such techniques saw nothing alarming because there was no evidence of physically damaging brutality. However, all who have made expert analyses comparing psychological and physical torture have unanimously found psychological torture the worse of the two, because it causes more severe mental damage, is hard to prove, and has longer-lasting effects.

But what many who saw those images coming out of the US military prisons also did not recognize was that they were seeing a stark reflection of conditions and practices occurring every day inside prisons across Amerika.

The Amerikan reformers who first devised the penitentiary believed that criminals could be "reformed" through solitary confinement, labor and religious indoctrination. The use of solitary confinement and isolation – sensory deprivation – began at Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary in the 1820s. But what was actually discovered was that conditions of sensory deprivation in isolation caused mental deterioration and psychosis. Leading writers like Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin upon touring the penitentiary spoke out against its conditions of mental torture. As Dickens observed, "I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body."7 The US Supreme court ultimately ruled such solitary confinement mentally destructive and outlawed it. However, the practice along with physical brutality persisted inside the hidden confines of US prisons.

The brutalities of the US prison system became public knowledge in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of the activism and literature of a broad prison movement and eloquent writings like those of George L. Jackson, Field Marshall of the Black Panther Party. Prisoners' views were being widely published and the Attica uprising, sparked by inhumane and oppressive prison conditions and the assassination of Jackson by prison guards, exposed in shocking images the oppression and brutalities of US prisons.

The official response was to suppress prisoner literature, to eliminate or restrict college and writing courses, to outlaw prisoners' profiting from their writings, and to eliminate prisoner-oriented media. This effectively depoliticized prisoners and allowed officials and the mainstream media to wage a racist campaign to demonize prisoners' image and isolate us to eliminate public awareness and support. Meantime, measures were taken to kill the revolutionary activist spirit in prisons, to remove and isolate the politically conscious and advanced prisoners, and incite the remainder into internal violence and division. Only months after Attica, officials opened the first control unit in the US prison in Marion, Illinois, within which torture became institutionalized with clear political objectives.

As former Marion warden Ralph Arons stated in federal court: "the purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in society at large."8 (Note his emphasis on mere thoughts of fundamental change, not actions, and not only inside the prisons, but also in society at large.) But US leaders deny political imprisonments or persecution of political dissenters and opponents. Since Marion opened its Control Unit in 1972, control units and supermaxes have swept the country, with most located in isolated rural white communities. In these high security environments, torture of prisoners along the lines of the CIA model is a common feature.

All US supermaxes and control units practice sensory deprivation – isolation and solitary confinement 231/2 hours per day in cells the size of a bathroom, minimal human interaction, little to no change in scenery, limited property access, and minimal contact with family and friends. Sensory shock and overload is also inflicted as prisoners are housed next to or near others with mental disorders or whom guards incite that scream, rant, bang, flood, throw body waste, don't bathe, etc.9 "Self-inflicted pain" is also a common practice in control units. Prisoners are routinely shackled and handcuffed or restrained to cell bunks in cramped and uncomfortable positions without meals and left to urinate and defecate on themselves and lie in it for hours to days; they're left hours to days in bare cold cells with little to no clothing; subjected to destroyed property; denied meals and privileges like outside exercise and showers; placed under high control; or forced to abandon or snitch on political or gang affiliations, etc. (Many simply remain in these units indefinitely out of official spite, for no reason at all, or for being inclined to complain or litigate against or publicly expose abusive treatments and conditions.) They are made to feel that their discomfort is their own fault for failing to cooperate and will cease upon their finally giving in.

Attacking prisoners' cultural sensitivities and personal phobias is the norm also, especially in that most of the control unit and supermax prisons are located in remote rural white-populated areas, whereas the prisoners are primarily urban people of color. This racial and cultural divide itself generates official insensitivity and intolerance to the prisoners' cultural interests, and causes prisoners to suffer acute cultural shock. Male prisoners' senses of masculinity are routinely targeted with provocative remarks, etc.

While seemingly benign, this combination of psychological techniques has proven revolutionary in its consistency in crushing prisoners' wills. I have personally witnessed this result among those confined in supermax prisons with me. The rate of attempted and successful suicides is unprecedented compared with "normal" prison environments. I witnessed four attempts in my own 22-bed unit in less than two months – two in one night.

Most of those who've endured supermax confinement for a year or more, I've observed, suffer a distinct regression into paranoia, irrationality, grandiose and persecutory delusions, childish attention-seeking behavior, reduced impulse control, hyper-sexuality, reduced ability to concentrate or maintain organized thoughts, compulsive and irrational searches for stimulation, gratification and attention, etc. Many deteriorate to the point of eating and smearing feces on themselves and their cells, rambling to themselves, screaming and ranting day and night, throwing feces on others (especially on other prisoners under guard encouragement), etc. All are simply left untreated except for being prescribed antipsychotic drugs (which many don't take), which further damage the brain and have dangerous side-effects. All are treated by guards with violence, abuse and disciplinary measures, often being left propertyless indefinitely inside empty cells – further sensory deprivation.

US prisoners are being treated in ways developed for use against so-called "enemy combatants" whom the US government sees as having no political rights. In reality, US prisoners have no recourse against being mentally tortured. This was assured by the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which bars prisoners from suing their abusers for mentally torturing them. 10
Not only do I witness these methods and their sobering and heart-rending effects on the human psyche, but I have been and am a victim of them. My only advantage, I believe, is in knowing and understanding the methods, being conscious to counter their effects, and having a strong constitution. Indeed, during the summer of 2006, in response to my work in exposing the brutalities at this prison and refusing to back down in other political work I've been involved in with outside people, guards twice electro-shocked me with a 50,000-volt electric stun belt.

During and since World War II US officials have learned that torture is best carried out in the dark and in ways that avoid proof and attention. The norm is therefore to deny the practice publicly, to couch it in seemingly harmless forms, but continue to plumb it of all its benefits in hidden and veiled practice. Its victims are the poor and powerless. That's me and potentially you.

Torture is an official part of US foreign and domestic policy under its federal and state executive powers. It's simply politically incorrect to allow this fact to be exposed to the public. When abuses and torture come out, damage control has blame placed on low-level officials as "renegade" and "rogue" soldiers or police or prison guards, whereas clearance for these practices goes up to the highest levels of command. This has proven to be the case in the scandals surrounding tortures at Abu Ghraib, with those soldiers targeted for prosecution who were reckless enough to allow practices of torture to come out. As Scott Morton of the New York Bar Association found after interviewing soldiers involved in the scandal, "the highest profile cases in which the severest sanctions are sought consistently involve those soldiers who ... permitted photographic evidence of the crimes at Abu Ghraib to become public knowledge." As Morton concluded, "it wasn't the abuse of prisoners which was being punished, but the fact that the military, and particularly [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld, has been embarrassed by these matters becoming public." This is the reality across the political spectrum, and no more than in US prisons. In fact, it was only in 1994 that the US ratified the UN convention against torture, which bars both physical and mental torture. However, US officials specifically exempted the US government from the language that forbids mental torture, and "reserved" the "right" of the president to override laws and treaties that forbid physical torture.

There is a need for us to move collectively against this reality of routine torture specifically and the slave status of US prisoners in general. The alternative is to sit in relative isolation, each of us, and permit the outrages to continue and increase, which they will, until no one will be left unaffected. Ninety-five percent of those imprisoned in Amerika will return to society at some point, and most of them in a more damaged state then when they came to prison. It's likely some of them will be living near or with you.

A movement is under way to amend the 13th Amendment, to abolish slavery in all its forms. The New Afrikan Black Panther Party—Prison Chapter supports this movement. We also promote transforming the iron houses of oppression into schools of liberation. To end torture, all power must be in the hands of the people!"

Notes:

1 As Angela Y. Davis points out, "[It] is important to remember that the punishment inflicted on [Black] women I during slavery] exceeded in intensity the punishment suffered by their men, for women were not only whipped and mutilated. they were also raped.... Rape was a weapon of domination, a weapon of repression. whose covert goal was to extinguish the slave women's will to resist, and in the process, to demoralize their men. [...] Slavery relied as much on routine sexual abuse as it relied on the whip and the lash.... Sexual coercion was an essential dimension of the social relations between slavemaster and slave.- Women. Race and Class (New York: Vintage, 1983), 23f, 175.
2 On the prevalence of rape in Amerikan prisons, see the detailed summary in Gary Hunter, "Guards' Rape of Prisoners Rampant. No Solution in Sight,'" Prison Legal News, vol. 17, no. 8 (August 2006), 1-13.
3 See UN documents including: UN Charter (1945); Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture (1994).
4 My account of CIA methods draws on Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), esp. ch. 2 ("Mind Control"").
5 McCoy, 33, quoting from Albert D. Biderman and Herbert Zimmer. eds.. The Manipulation of Human Behavior (New York: Wiley, 1961), 29.
6 The Supreme Cowl found that solitary confinement had severe debilitating effects on its victims. It stated: -A considerable number of prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to remove them, and others became violently insane: others still committed suicide, while those who stood the ordeal better were generally not reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community." In Re Medley, 134 U.S. 160, 168 (1890).
7 Charles Dickens, American Notes (1842) (New York: Fromm International, 1985), 99; quoted in Control Unit Torture (a pamphlet by prison writer Frank J. Atwood).
8 Stephen Whitman, "The Marion Penitentiary – It Should Be Opened Up, Not Locked Down," Southern Illinoisian, August 7, 1988, p. 25.
9 Many modern courts have found the same conditions and injuries to prisoners from confinement in modem control units as did the high court of 1890 in the Medley case (note 5). See e.g. Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F. supp. 1146 (1995): "[M]any, if not most, inmates in SHU [Special Housing Units] experience some degree of psychological trauma in reaction to their extreme social isolation and the severely restricted environmental stimulation in SHU.- This court concluded that confinement under such conditions -may press the outer bounds of what humans can psychologically tolerate.... The psychological consequences of living in these units for long periods of time are predictably destructive, and the potential for these psychological stressors to precipitate various forms of psychopathology is clear cut.- Another court found that -isolating human beings from other human beings year after year or even month after month can cause substantial psychological damage, even if the isolation is not total.- Davenport v. DeRoberts, 844 F. 2d, 1310, 1313, 1316 (1989).
10 In the case of Madrid v. Gomez (1995), Dr. Stuart Grassian, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist, conducted in-depth studies of 50 Pelican Bay control unit prisoners and found that 40 had suffered mental impairment and injury as a result of control unit confinement. He handed his findings over to federal and state officials. The official response toGrassian's expose on control unit torture was to push through Congress the PLRA, which effectively denies the victims any legal remedy for mental injuries, unless they can show a prior physical injury resulting from the mental torture –even though mental torture by definition, nature, and design produces no physical injury which precedes psychological injury. See 42 United States Code, Section 1997(e).

A conference and rally being planned for Philadelphia in 2007 will focus on reaching out broadly to prisoner rights groups and drawing them together into a national association aimed at abolishing the status of slaves for prisoners. The rally following the conference will raise the demands 1) Abolish Slavery—Amend the 13th Amendment, 2) Freedom for Political Prisoners/POWs 3) End the Racist Death Penalty, 4) Defend the Human Rights of All Prisoners. For information or to contact the NABBP-PC, contact Rising Sun Press, PO Box 4362. Allentown, PA 18105, phone (610) 437-2971 or email tomw@iwon.com.

Oregon Eco-saboteurs Admit Responsibility, Remain Resolute in Not Implicating Others

from the Civil Rights Outreach Committee
November 8, 2006

Eugene, OR – The four remaining non-cooperating defendants in the Oregon “Green Scare” case today changed their pleas and agreed to drop their request for production of NSA surveillance materials and data. Recent negotiations between federal prosecutors and the defendants resulted in a global resolution non-cooperation plea agreement whereby the four defendants will agree to accept responsibility for their own roles in environmentally motivated crimes, but do not agree to provide information or testify against anyone now or in the future.

Joyanna Zacher, Nathan Block, Daniel McGowan and Jonathan Paul appeared in federal court this morning before U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken to enter pleas related to acts of property destruction and arson. Zacher and Block each plead to one count of conspiracy, attempted arson, and two separate incidents of arson. McGowan plead to conspiracy and to two separate incidents of arson. The government is recommending they be sentenced to 96 months in federal prison. Paul plead to one count of arson and one count of conspiracy. The government is recommending Paul be sentenced to 60 months in prison. All four defendants are free to argue for a lesser sentence. The next status hearing will be on December 14 to determine when sentencing will occur.

Despite the agreement however, federal prosecutors have asked the court to apply a “terrorism enhancement” at sentencing. Should Judge Aiken grant the government’s request, the non-cooperating defendants could face up to 20 years in prison in addition to the terms of the plea agreement. The government is seeking the “terrorism enhancement” despite the fact that the crimes to which they have admitted responsibility only involve the destruction of private property; no government property was damaged in any of the incidents.

After the hearing, Jonathan Paul, through a statement made by his sister Alexandra Paul, indicated that after the Cavel West slaughterhouse fire, “he realized that fire was an unacceptable means to an end, no matter how compelling.” He also stated however, that he “will continue to be a person deeply committed to the betterment of our society and the elimination of animal and human suffering.”

During the hearing, Daniel McGowan made a heartfelt statement to a packed courtroom that “this plea agreement is very important to me because it allows me to accept full responsibility for my actions and at the same time remain true to my strongly held beliefs.” McGowan’s attorney, Amanda Lee, added that Daniel “did not identify or implicate any other individuals.”

Despite the pleas entered today which resolve the Oregon cases in their entirety Jeff Hogg remains imprisoned without having been charged with any crimes for his refusal to testify against others after being subpoenaed to a federal grand jury. After the hearing, Hogg’s partner Cecilia Storey made an emotional plea for his immediate release from custody.

Copies of a press packet with a synopsis of the prosecution, related articles background information, historical examples of sabotage in the U.S., and a history of FBI repression of political activism are available upon request.

Statement for the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners (December 2006)

by Jeffrey "Free" Luers

Around the world millions of people are suffering from the abuses of power that have become all too common in our human societies. In dozens of countries, generations of people have chosen to fight injustice rather than submit to it.

We honor those people today. We raise our voices and our fists to salute those who have fought to free their homelands, who have struggled for self-determination; those who have demanded human rights; those who have raided laboratories and liberated animals; and those who have fought to defend our earth.

Today we shout our praises and offer our respect to those captured in the line of duty, serving their cause. We thank them for refusing to submit even behind bars.

On this day we bow our heads in reverence to those people who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives for freedom. We remember the price they paid and the loss that their family and friends still feel.

We offer more than our gratitude. We offer our solidarity. We make a promise to remember and honor those who have come before. We make a vow that the struggle will continue until all are free.

Too many people have had to fight for the freedom they should have been guaranteed at birth; too many have suffered the cruelty of capitalist exploitation.

The most important thing we can do today is to make a solemn oath: that ours is the last generation that will have to struggle; that we will apply pressure from all angles until these systems of oppression crack; that we will settle for nothing less than victory.

With the memory of those who have come before us; in solidarity with those still standing behind bars; while honoring those who gave their lives: We march forward to bring a new day with our heads high and our fists raised.

And I say to you that if we stand united with one voice and we act on our desire for liberation we will carry the day! We will win!

- Jeff “Free” Luers

Write to:

Jeff Luers #13797671
Oregon State Prison
2605 State Street
Salem, OR 97310

Rap, Revolutionary Consciousness, Youth, and the Continuing Struggle

by Jaan Laaman

Stencil of Tupac by Antoine Lax, Larkin Street Youth Services, San Francisco

It is a reality of life and of revolution, that Liberation and change will come largely from the courage and work of young people.

In the last issue of 4struggle, we printed a letter from Akili, a brother from Pelican Bay. He raised some important questions about the role of youth, hip hop/rap music and the connection between political prisoners, politically conscious prisoners and the overall struggle. 4strugglemag invited readers to get into this discussion. We have received some good ideas and comments. We are reprinting Akili's letter and the Editor's note from issue 7, followed by thoughts and comments from readers. 4strugglemag will continue to publish this discussion in the next issue and we welcome more feedback on everything said so far.

Communicate to Educate
- Educate to Liberate!
Jaan Laaman, editor

A Letter from Akili

Dear 4strugglemag folks...

I just finished the last issue of 4struggle, and it seems the printed version is growing by leaps and bounds.

The purpose of this quick note is to make a suggestion. I noticed a couple of the articles hit on a common dilemma we politicized prisoners of conscious seem to have. The main questions are how do we fit into the struggle to support PP/POWs? What should our role be? What's expected of us? Also, How do we settle and come to terms with the new contradictions living and growing up in these times present? What I mean is for us, the "hip hop generation," to use a catch phrase, the need for struggle or (better yet) the avenues for struggle have been somewhat buried under a mountain of illusory success, gold chains, big houses, endorsement deals worth millions of dollars, etc. etc. The hip hop culture as screwed as it is by big corporations is now the driving force of amerikan commerce, so of course it's the driving force of everything that goes with that: oppression, dope, capitalism, war, etc etc.

My question is, how would you feel about doing a hip hop issue, or section where we can juxtapose hip hop's role and our job as members of the hip hop generation and PPOC/POCs. You could set it off by asking 3 or so questions in the next issue. I would suggest something like:

1. How has hip hop influenced consciousness of the hip hop generation?
2. Does the Hip Hop Generation have a role in struggle today? What is it?
3. What should PPOC/POCs be doing, or how should we he using hip hop to bridge the gap and support PP/POWs?

That will give some of the brothers and sisters time to collect their thoughts and send in some articles, poems, etc. The point is that we are losing our true leadership. You cats aren't getting any younger, sitting in these hell holes and the system is constantly mouthing into new forms of keeping PP/POWs off the streets and out of the limelight.

For example here on the doc of the bay – they just implemented a system now where they've taken all the old solid cats like Hugo and others who've been struggling, fighting, and not bending, breaking, or cracking, for all those years under the worst conditions the state can offer, all while still educating the next generation like myself, and stuck them in 3 or 4 units away from the rest of the population in the SHU. So now you've got isolation, in isolation, in isolation. They've created a super SHU, within the SHU to deliberately keep the older guys away from the younger ones. No guidance. No leadership. No experience. So what do you think will happen – all we have to do is look at our communities for the answer! Chaos, petty criminals pretending to be leaders, etc. etc.

Not to mention the fact that the rallies, the world wide marc