Rock 3-12.Indd
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
WorkingWor king ttoo EExtendx ten d D Democracyemocracy ttoo All VolumeVlVolume 3, 3N3, NNumberum ber 12 12 DecemberDecember 20142014 LAST ISSUE? his will be the last of my Editorial Dual power is a revolutionary idea be- the phrase “power to the people” bandied Comments in the fi nal edition of the cause, well, because it is a step toward full about. This is what we are talking about, TRock newsletter for most readers. power. I’ll say this over and over again, empowerment! Rock is dying, although not because of my power is not something that can be handed Dialectics teach us that everything in na- health. Most of you don’t pay at all or pay to you on a silver platter. It is something ture is in a constant state of change. Even too little. I have 61 paid subscriptions out that must be struggled for. And in the pro- rocks, which change very slowly, are not of a mailing list of 600. Me, Mark, and the cess of that struggle you learn how to wield immune from this process. The struggle 61 can no longer support the free rides. power, how to develop the responsibility of prisoners is also in a constant state of Prisoners almost completely paid for that comes with having power. To change change. Everything is either growing or in a the costs of this newsletter for the fi rst two your situation, your status as a slave, you state of decline and decay, and this includes years of her existence. The third year, how- need only exercise responsibility. The more political struggles and movements as well. ever, has been a complete and total fi nan- collective responsibility you exercise the I think we can deduce from the number of cial disaster. I accept that my strident com- more power you’ll gain. participants in the three hunger strikes that munism may be a large part of this decline. Try to envision a future in which pris- the prisoners’ movement in California has Regardless of the reason, Mark and I have oners themselves allocate fi scal resources, the potential for growing larger and more both been rendered broke. Now, I leave re- maintain order, decide who is ready to go powerful, that it is changing into, or in the maining readers with a message.1 home, and set standards for living condi- process of becoming, a political movement. tions on the inside, and you are paid a full To Rights Conscious Prisoners: salary for doing this work. The ultimate Why did CDCR and the Governor refuse goal is to eliminate the scourge of prisons CONTENTS to respond to the terrifi c amount of pressure altogether. However, that will never hap- The Last Issue .........................1 from both the inside and the outside to meet pen under the dog-eat-dog culture of capi- the fi ve core demands? I mean even the As- talism. Even after the socialist revolution it Libya: Three Years Later ..........4 sociation of Catholic Bishops pleaded in will take a generation or two to erase the support of the cause of prisoners on hunger negative effects of capitalist culture from Book Review: Guerrilla USA ....5 strike. Here’s why. What prisoncrats and society. During this transition period there guards fear most of all, more than anything will be far fewer prisons, although we may Lawsuit: Mumia Censorship .....8 else, is something called dual power. Dual not call them by that name. These facili- Letters ......................................9 power means prisoners have a say in the ties will be spacious areas of countryside, running of the prisons. And why not? with buildings designed for comfort (small A New Beginning?....................11 A democratically elected organization homes, not cells, close to cities and our of prisoners could not do a worse job than families and loved ones), where prisoners Battered Citizen Syndrome ......12 CDCR, with its seventy percent failure rate, (if they are still called that) have everything its ongoing torture programs, and CDCR’s needed to make life more enjoyable, such Proposition 47 Releases ..........12 treating human beings as less than animals as computers, adequate medical care, open Book Review: Out of Control....14 and doing so in conditions that shock the conjugal visits, education and wages com- conscience, and at a cost of billions of dol- parable to outside workers, etc. Non-Violent Women Cons .......17 lars a year. My point here is that you are in a struggle for power, without which your conditions Rock's Future ...........................18 1. Rock may come out for everyone again when pris- 2 oners have donated the money to pay for it ($500). of existence will never improve. You see Mark and I might put out occasional issues at our 2. Save for the pull up bar, or sweat pants you might Poetry.......................................19 expense if there is a signifi cant struggle taking place. have to struggle for another twenty years to get. Yet there are many contradictions, some decaying—there will be political progress section of the ship the economic infrastruc- antagonistic, like between the keepers or there will be internecine cannibalism. ture. On the top of our ship is the wheel and the kept or the rich and the poor, and Welcome to democracy! You each have a house and other mechanisms providing the some non-antagonistic, like the contradic- vote. You vote with your feet (Prison Fo- ship’s direction and destination, which we tion among various groups of prisoners. cus #41, Winter 2013, page 14). will name the ship's political superstruc- Non-antagonistic are resolved ture. through discussion, criticism, Capitalism and socialism have self-criticism, and through oth- completely different economic er peaceful solutions. So while infrastructures, in the case of the our movement for construc- former the means of production tive change is growing, there and distribution are in private are internal contradictions that hands, in the hands of large cor- must be resolved. In spite of the porations that are owned by less Agreement to End Hostilities, than one half of one percent of for example, a letter writer re- the population called the ruling ports that there was a recent riot class or bourgeoisie. In the case between whites and Mexicans of the latter, the means of pro- at his facility. So there are two duction are owned by the work- opposites at work here—the pull ing class and production works back to the old ways of prisoner- to serve their class interests, the on-prisoner violence (cannibal- interests of the vast majority of ism), or the peaceful struggle to people. bring about a more just and rational world. The fi rst step in this journey is not only to The political superstructure of either of Which will win? Well, of course, the one recommit to Agreement to End Hostilities, those economic engines can take any form you feed. but to do what your captors have not done: depending upon the needs of the struggle. Right now this peaceful movement for disseminate this call to the populations In the case of the revolutionary struggle, it progressive change is a mile wide but of the state’s prisons. They refuse to take can be anything from authoritarian (but so- only an inch deep. The task is to deepen this step to stop the prisoner-on-prisoner cialist) dictatorship to a liberal democracy this struggle, while at the same time mak- violence for two reasons. First, because it in which said democracy actually rules in ing it even wider. How is this to be done? keeps prisoners divided and the Green Wall the interests of the vast majority. Well, there are countless ways. The most in full control. And, secondly, because How would socialism look in America? important, in my opinion, is for the more stopping the gang violence in this man- Well, as I said, it will look however the politically advanced and rights conscious ner would be giving the reps power—dual people making the revolution want it to prisoners to become teachers. The object power—and prisoner power is a terrible look – the working class and its allies. But would be to make social prisoners’ rights- anathema to the failing policies of the pris- I can bet that there will be no revolution conscious and rights-conscious prison ers oncrats (we might do it better than them, in the U.S.A. unless it actually extends class conscious. prisoners and ex-convicts are the experts democracy—both economic and political, Being a teacher is as easy as what Walla on the root causes of the state’s disastrous and unless it provides the truth, dignity and Walla prisoners did in 1971. Where strict corrections failure!). Just look at the “Re- justice so lacking in today’s America. short hair rules were in effect at the time, habilitation” joke that went no further than some prisoners scrawled on walls: If you a change from CDC to CDCR, while at the To The Class Conscious Prisoners: care, grow some hair." same time slashing some already existing “Like Britain before it, the US has Advances in the movement can only rehabilitation programs). tended to support radical Islam and be made through increasing the rights When I talk of socialism some prison- to oppose secular nationalism, which and political consciousness of larger and ers tend to have a mental picture of Stalin- both imperial states have regarded larger numbers of prisoners. Those with ist (oppressed) zombies marching off to as more threatening to their goals of a more advanced level of consciousness toil in the people’s glorious factories and domination and control.” should reach out to the intermediate layers wheat fi elds, like in the old Soviet Union as —Noam Chomsky of political development, who in turn can given to us by the ruling class’s means of The presidential elections coming up in penetrate the bottom strata, moving them disinformation and miseducation.