Prisoner from Pelican Bay CA, Sept. 30, 2011 (Letter arrived 12/1/11)

As always a clenched fist goes out to you all! I write from the tombs of Pelican Bay to notify you that a hunger strike has returned to this prison.

Initially the five demands were presented in July of this year as your newspaper covered during that time but the most essential demand being to abolish the debriefing process was denied by California prison officials. The initial hunger strike in July was not initiaited for some pastels or photos, to think prisoners held in the control unit under the torture conditions that are outlawed in most countries would agree to continue to live a life of sensory deprivation so long as we get a photo once a year is not only insulting it’s absurd. The fact that most joined the initial strike not for wall calendars but for the demand of abolishing the debriefing process explains why many would once more take up the strike. As of September 26 a second hunger strike has been initiated and is aimed at getting the California prison officials to abolish the debriefing process.

I think the anniversary of Attica and the martyrs who rose up against prison repression so many years ago reminds us of the treachery of the state. Indeed, we cannot and must not rely on false promises from the state that too often prove to end tragically for prisoners. Rather, the correct path seems to lie in allowing the abolishing of the debriefing process be the clincher instead of closed room back door deals that will only bring more repression especially to those who attend such murky meetings. During the uprising at Attica there were also “meetings” between leaders and the state mouthpiece and this was a grave mistake as those same leaders were then targeted and some murdered when the state was ready to pounce. We should always learn from history and never follow the same boobytrapped path as before. The Attica uprising was a heroic act and remains the beacon for what prison resistance can look like and the courageous prisoners will always inspire the imprisoned masses yet those conscious, revolutionary prisoners of Attica would have wanted- and even expected and demanded we learn from their experience as well. So although prisons today have very different material conditions and facilities like the supermax is designed primarily to prevent another Attica and so our forms of resistance are confined to the most primitive yet we still continue. Today this takes the form of once more denying nutrients in hope of the light to be shined on what California prisoners are forced to endure, of what Amerika does to the poor.

I hope this time around we don’t have casualties yet I know enough of history to understand that if bombs raining down on a Afghan village from a drone and blowing up children don’t get the Imperialist’s to even blink much less stop, then I know prisoners coming out of the Barrios and slums who may become gravely injured from these peaceful actions will not even raise an eyebrow from the ruling class. I think prisoners understand this and work toward the attention raising of the masses so that people here in Amerika as well as around the world understand that torture and repression exists in Amerika, and they are not alone in struggling against this oppression.

The best thing coming out of these strikes is they are giving birth to a whole new generation of prison activists and prison revolutionaries as each strike brings fresh blood and new eyes to the effort where this protest become part of the prison culture and manifests in all sorts of new forms of resistance accross America. In gulags accross Amerika prisoners are hearing and learning of the California prison struggles and applying these ideas to their material reality just as the slaves must have done hearing of an uprising and underground railroad the air becomes charged and electric with the possibility of defying the master. Prisoners like slaves have been trained to respect the whip, well today prisoners all over Amerika are hearing our “blasphemous” words of fuck the whip!

In struggle

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