Letters

Dear 4strugglemag collective,

Sacred sisters, sacred brothers, my great family of all humanity – I love you all.

Tsi yo li ha – I greet you from this iron house, this old dangerous prison, that is now the new Marion or ‘SMU’ compounding the problems of negative thought, in these guards and oppressed men alike.

Gad a do lis di ha – I pray, in Cherokee – Tsa La gi every day. I start as soon as I wake up at 6:00 am. I pray for my sons Eduardo – Carlos – Shilo and my son with Jodie, then I pray for all sources of Ama – water and my spirit guides. I pray for all water in the Earth and Universe to be healed, making water pure again. As I splash my face 7 times and drink 7 times, thanking Creator and Mother Earth for all water. We have a ‘dire’ emergency here in the Earth my sisters and brothers – both people and animal-bird-spider Tree People. All of us. Yet I address the people warriors – I pray for everyone to rise up and shut these destructive industries down for good. Please everyone stop thinking of selfish matters. Consider ‘all life’ and place all life above and before yourselves. Also everyone needs to rush to the aid of the NYM (Native Youth Movement) up in Chase BC to shut off the power of trespassers playing games on their sacred mountains – go help Natukatnana and all her Sisters and Brothers. Now – please do not wait, no wasting time. Oh – my cellie Andrew has something to say. He is a Yupik Eskimo of Alaska.
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My name is Andrew Adams Jr. My cellie is Oso Blanco. He prays in Cherokee and does some very special spiritual things I’ve seen done back home. He sits at his table all day, writing letters to try to inspire people all over the Earth. Sometimes he looks up at me, turns his radio off and gets very serious and says, “don’t worry bro, the revolution is coming. We are going to be free to go help our people.”

I really do hope this really happens. Because we really do need one. For the better of this Earth, this corrupt government needs to be crushed, and everyone needs to go back to the old ways and quit hurting Mother Earth. It has to happen for the better. If not, this Earth is going to die and there is going to be nothing left. Or the Mother Earth will smash us all.

Thank you. I love you all. Andrew Adams

[Oso Blanco writing again]

Ok be strong my brothers and sisters.

We are all sacred, so we must realize we are sacred beings. Please please rise up. I am praying for the economy to crash – so people will stop living as mindless, destructive slaves. Let us all get back to the garden – nature and higher consciousness. Before the animal, bird and spider brothers and sisters vote us off the Earth.

Yona Unega
Oso Blanco
de Aztlán
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Dear 4strugglemag,

Revolutionary greetings!

I’ve been receiving yall’s magazine for about 3 ½ years, and am truly blessed with all of the info and dialogue the network puts out. Thank you so much.

I wanted to touch base with all of you on the subject of juveniles serving life without parole (LWOP), as well as other harmful and unduly sentences given to youths.

As a 15 year old child, I was arrested and originally charged with murder – the charge was later upgraded to a capital murder. I was certified as an adult at 15 years of age and transferred to the adult court, went to trial and was found guilty and given an automatic life sentence 35 calendar years before being eligible to see parole.

I know my constitutional rights were violated as to ‘due process’ – the arresting officers never contacted my family, nor the Mexican Consulate to be present during questioning. I had/have dual citizenship and know I have rights. I know I wasn’t given a fair trial so I hired a legal team from Ohio, which is NLPA after 2 appeals being denied. Also I’m retaining an attorney which they recommended to represent me.

Texas has one of the worst judicial systems in the entire U.S.

I am not giving up on my freedom – even after 17 years of being incarcerated! I also feel national attention should be brought to the inhumane treatment of juveniles – especially when one as myself was wrongfully convicted!

Keep me in mind and in yall’s prayers. Have a good year!
Respectfully,
Manuel R. Romero, age 32.
1992-2009-?

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Dear 4Strugglemag,

I have spent 4 ½ years incarcerated, which has completely restructured the person that I am in a revolutionary way. I got your mag from my neighbor the other day and was impressed with its content; most of the articles felt like they had been pulled right from my head. I am a tutor/ teacher here and I use that opportunity to promote critical thinking and discussion of political topics, and I’ve lately been using your Issues 14 and 15 to aid in our discussions, particularly among the youth here (of which I was one until recently).

During my time incarcerated, some very intelligent gentlemen decided to invest their time in me and changed me from a complete religio-fascist that I was at one time into a stronger, much more intelligent self-described revolutionary. Prison, having a different effect than what the state would prefer, has educated me and shown me the real perspective of what our country is at and the people suffering and struggling under the dominant ruling class. My goal now is to do everything I can to tear down the ignorance and institutions of fear that I once was under but now see through.

Other than to praise your mag as one of the few avenues for prisoner freedom of speech, and to request a subscription myself, I am also sending an article I wrote called “Religio-Capitalism” which is based on my own experiences about the negative effects of how religion influences, and is intertwined with, capitalism, and why church and state aren’t really separate. Please consider it for inclusion in your next issue, it offers a perspective of someone who used to be on the other side. And please send me a copy of your next issue regardless.
My Salutations,

Chris Dankovich #595904
Thumb Correctional Facility
3225 John Conley Drive
Lapeer, MI 48446

Religio-Capitalism

BY CHRIS DANKOVICH

In every religion during creation the head deity gives his newly created man the Earth and tells him to do what he pleases with it. Man is given a woman and told to do what he pleases with her. In every society, in every state, the dominant class (and as evidenced above, gender) will use, or create, whatever ideology and morality it can to keep its dominance; in the process the dominant class will attempt to deify itself. This produces a sense of entitlement by the dominant class that is the basis of what capitalism is built on.

Inheritance is the main aspect of that entitlement (an essential worship of the fates) and demonstrates the racial divisions inherent in capitalism. Entitlement and therefore inequality between different individuals is explained simply by where and to whom you happen to be born. Kings inherit the “divine right” to rule, the upper classes inherit their position, based solely on genetic, and therefore racial, features. But as no human being has the ability to decide where or to whom they are born, this lack of choice violates the very nature of the most professed “moral” of capitalism: that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful. Those African-Americans who suffered before, during, and still today after the civil rights movement can attest to this: equality cannot be maintained in a system where one group, united by any means but usually by relation or race, inherits its advantages. And capitalism by its very nature is the use of one’s own advantages, such as knowledge or means, to manipulate and take advantage of another human being’s disadvantages or ignorance for a profitable gain. The process of maintaining one’s advantages requires the prevention of others from acquiring those same advantages.

To maintain their advantages, the dominant class introduces a morality and a set of laws based upon that morality, designed to keep individuals submissive. Every society, every state, every religion has its own version of morality, in each created by, and created to benefit, that particular group’s dominant class. This morality creates fear through stigmatism and direct punishment for disobedience of the morality, and therefore its creators. As the creators and distributors of this morality, the morality once accepted acts to deify the dominant class, while at the same time making it immoral to challenge them or do anything which would help to bridge the gap and remove their sole ownership of whatever advantage makes them dominant The enforcement of morality is through fear, fear being the foundation upon which the state is built. Throughout most of human history, this fear has been produced through association with the supernatural.

Every king, ruler, and other members of the dominant classes through history until our modern industrial era have associated their rule with religion because of the raw power granted them by appearing as a representative of the deity on Earth. No longer was the dominant individual or class required to spend as much time instilling fear to enforce their morality on the population. The fear came instantly with religion.

Compare this with modern times, where church and state are seemingly separated in our industrial-capitalist nations. With the advent of industrialization, the separation of church and state in America and elsewhere became a way to modernize and consolidate the power of the dominant classes. The state was built with an aura of religion stacked with ceremony and unnecessary tradition, along with itself replacing the “God” figure through propaganda and programming of nationalistic views. The illusion of freedom is created to blind individuals from the fact that there is even a struggle and to justify the position of the dominant class without the need for a supernatural justification. Power remains in the hands of the dominant class and will always remain so as long as the advantages held by them, particularly knowledge in our current age, are prevented from falling into the hands of the lower classes, which have been made ignorant and without the ability to rise out of their position as a whole, as evident in the major cities of the world. Knowledge simply of the existence of a different possible way of life, of opportunity, for most is lost. The state, run by whatever class is in control, becomes the proverbial self-centered God telling man to never eat of the tree of knowledge, not out of concern for the man, but for the fear of man becoming God.
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Dear 4SM,

First of all, although this is just a letter of appreciation, any part of any communication(s) submitted on my behalf may be used by 4SM.

Secondly, I have heard so much about this publication, 4SM, that now I have received “Issue 14” and am pleased to discover that it is all I expected. The magazine was filled with relevant issues and was presented well. As you know, it is very important for one’s enduring repression to have an outlet. I found the articles to be very “polished” which speaks to the author’s development. I was familiar with most of the people mentioned in the publication. It was interesting to learn of the outcomes and updates of their situations through time and continued diligence.

Third, the piece on women prisoners was heartfelt. It was very sickening to see the abuses female prisoners are subjected to which are beyond what male prisoners face. I was enlightened to the plights of my female counterparts by an associate who established programs for female prisoners held in Danbury, Connecticut. Even so, I was still surprised and saddened by some of the facts in the article. The treatment of female prisoners by male staff reminded me of a piece I read titled “The Psychology of a Prison Guard.” It detailed the degeneration of the mental and emotional state of the “typical” guard. In particular, when a person is first hired to work in corrections they often see it as just a job. Over time that same person becomes dissatisfied and frustrated by the mundane routine and the emotional detachment one must muster in order to deal with human beings in an unnatural environment. As such, prisoners become the object of hatred, albeit subconsciously, because they begin to be viewed as the cause of all that is wrong with the guard’s daily “existence.” This is evidenced by statements such as “if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here!” Which in reality is true in the regard that if there were no prisoners and ultimately prisons, guards will be unemployed. I said that to say this: it is extremely sad to see people try things just because they think that they can get away with them. The entire concept of prison in Amerika needs to be revamped. It is archaic to say the least. Most people feel that prisoners should be punished and that it is their personal responsibility to do so. When this mentality is coupled with the reality that this colony come to be known as Amerika was founded on violence, exploitation and oppression, it becomes easier to see that many have been abused/hurt in some form or fashion. As a result, many of these people seek an outlet for their suppressed pain and insecurities while prisoners make an ideal target and outlet. When the Supreme Court ruled that prisons are not to be held accountable, for the most part, “to outside entities for the day to day operations of prisons,” it caused peer pressure to be the ruling factor of employee conduct. “Whistle blowers” are extremely rare. I strongly agree that there needs to be increased awareness and solidarity between male and female prisoners activist groups along with the prisoners themselves.

Lastly, I know all too well the ugly side of incarceration. Besides being held captive for a crime I did not commit, I recently endured blatant injustice and repression. To be clear, I was involved in an incident at U.S.P. Big Sandy on September 17, 2007. I was in B-4 housing unit when three inmates were told to get on the wall to be “pat-searched.” During said search, an officer Jude began attacking the inmate he was searching. He struck him in the back of the head and then placed the inmate in a headlock. Another inmate involved in the initial search attempted to stop the officer from assaulting the inmate. The last of the three inmates initially involved fled the scene. This is turn caused there to be two guards assaulting the inmate who attempted to assist the inmate who was struck in the back of the head. Please keep in mind that this took place on the first floor of the housing unit also known as the common area. That means that there were approximately 150 inmates witnessing this take place. This is the point where I became involved in the incident. I ran across the unit to stop the two guards from assaulting the inmate who attempted to halt the initial assault. I grabbed one of the guards and pulled him off of the inmate. The guard fell to the ground and as he was in the process of getting up he grabbed me and we began to grapple. After a short time, the staff from other parts of the prison came to “break up” the situation. The three of us were taken, in various states of dress, to the Lt.’s office. Long story short, we were taken from the institution the next morning by “emergency transfer” with U.S. Marshals holding guns on us while in a van to U.S.P. Lee in Virginia. A month later we were taken to District court in London, Kentucky. Nearly every legal procedure was violated. I prepared our defence, which was ultimately sabotaged by court appointed clowns (I meant to say counsel). I am a layman at law, but captured most of the errors on record to no avail. Our presiding judge, G. Van Tatenhove, stated several times that he intended to make “an example out of us.” Subsequently, we were denied calling favourable witnesses and proceeded to trial, during which the term nigger was used frequently and received unflinchingly by the all white jury. During pre-trial we were held at the Fayette County Detention Centre in a special “Inmate Behavioural Modification Unit.” We were subjected to sensory deprivation along with an array of physical and psychological abuses. I came to find out that the responsible administration at Fayette Co had strong ties to U.S.P. Big Sandy (S.I.A. Links) especially. The conclusion of trial was conviction. Upon my return to the prison system, my inmate file was severely altered in order to qualify me for the Special Management Program (S.M.U.) at Lewisburg. I search for anyone, especially counsel, who will not be intimidated by the government who may assist in righting this wrong.

Sincerely,
Oceanus Perry
Reg No. 65754-061
S.M.U. Lewisburg
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Political Hostages Inside Indiana’s Prisons

BY BRO. HAROLD BROWN

In February of 1993, public television journalist, Bill Moyers, wrote an article titled “ A Quirk In The Law.”

This particular quirk in the law created a small class of political hostages inside Indiana’s Prisons. Legislators created and enacted this bill/law in 1979-80, related to multiple life sentences not falling under the jurisdiction of the parole board, meaning that certain prisoners will remain in prison until they die.

I believe a few of these hostages have at least forty in. I personally have served thirty-four years myself. This law affected about forty-six of us initially. Here recently around ten or twelve have died of chronic medical problems!

In the year 1961, the Indiana Parole requirements afforded everybody a chance to appear before “The Parole Board for parole consideration,” except prisoners sentenced to death. Currently as it stands now we were denied the right/chance to even appear before the parole board all these years!

This law is clearly illegal. It’s also a human rights violation to target a particular group of individuals/ prisoners. These laws compromise and undermine the laws set forth by the Honorable State Of Indiana itself, due to the fact that prison is to be a form of rehabilitation.

As it stands currently, it’s merely designed to slowly mentally and physically torture these prisoners, who can only be described as political hostages, in line for the slaughter of death, which ever comes first. Historically, Indiana has trailed states on human rights. The question that should be addressed is whether anyone is above the Law. Currently speaking, the answer is ‘yes’ – The State Of Indiana is, because surely it’s not a convicted felon! It is my hope that this letter will shine some needed light on a rogue law in Indiana that has created “political hostages,” out of a particular group of prisoners.

We pray that some moral and just fraction of society will come to aid and assist us in anyway possible to ensure that real justice will somehow manifest in our case. Anyone, any organizations who are able and willing to help us, please contact me.

Political Hostage #3
Bro. Harold Brown, #10037-D-310
WVCF P.O. Box 1111
Carlisle, IN 47838