SUPPORT PELICAN BAY PRISON HUNGER STRIKERS, SHUT DOWN SUPERMAX PRISONS

SOME CALL THIS HOME

The hunger strike is back on in California's prisons.  Since the first strike ended the administration has done nothing real to meet negotiated demands and in some cases has even made things worse.  Meanwhile, we all need to be looking at Supermax Prisons which are torture just in their existence.  I recently read a book on the Red Army Faction in Germany (see bottom of page).  Many of the documents and writings were about the prison conditions faced by the RAF prisoners.  The isolation and sensory deprivations crap developed by the German State have become commonplace in the USA today.  They are inhuman and should be seen as nothing by evil incarnate.  Whatever, you may think of the RAF, you might want to read some of their writings from prison.  They will tell you a lot about today.


The article below is from the SF Bay View (a regular source of info around here).

Call for prisoners in solitary nationwide to strike in solidarity with Pelican Bay

by Jeremy Pinson

Jeremy Pinson is a federal prisoner in the Florence, Colo., Ad-Max (Administrative Maximum), known as the Guantanamo of the Rockies, said to be even more restrictive than the Pelican Bay SHU.

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Florence Ad-Max SWAT officers are depicted in this painting by Tommy Silverstein, who is reported to have been held in solitary confinement longer than any other federal prisoner.

I am serving 21 years in federal prison – in solitary confinement – because I protested the Iraq War. I was a congressional aide and my speaking out against a fraudulent war and senseless killing of Arabs earned me my spot here. I will not be intimidated and silenced.

I am with the men of Pelican Bay and am calling for a federal strike to support the men in PBSP as well as all those held in such housing in all U.S. prisons. I am lucky to be helped by a superb legal team and I intend to attack this system of injustice until I am no longer living.


I hope you will report on these facts and spread the word that I and the men in the federal system are behind those in California. We support them and we will do our part to bring justice to an unjust system.
I want to let you know, as it relates to the California hunger strike, that I have put together a coalition to sue the feds on behalf of the 400 inmates housed here at the supermax in indefinite solitary confinement.


For more information, Jeremy provides his address and the names and numbers of his three lawyers: Jeremy Pinson, 16267-064, ADX Florence, P.O. Box 8500, Florence CO 81226; his attorneys are Ed Aro (303) 863-2380, Deborah Golden (202) 775-0323 and Elisabeth Owen (720) 295-9389.

Petition: Restore Justice in America’s Prisons

This petition, which can be signed at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/endsmu2011/ ^[2], is the work of Jeremy Pinson.


The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) houses 207,000 inmates, 2,000 of whom are housed in Special Management Units. These units were created in 2008 and are located at Talladega, Ala., Florence, Colo., Oakdale, La., Lewisburg, Pa., and Allenwood, Pa.


The “SMU Program” is the subject of over 150 federal lawsuits challenging the brutal, inhumane conditions of those units resulting in one murder, one suicide, and hundreds of assaults and suicide attempts occurring in the 25 months since the program’s inception.


Prisoners are routinely beaten, sprayed with mace, restrained in chains for days, and deprived of meals, legal and religious items by federal employees with virtually no oversight or investigations into rampant corruption, misconduct and brutality.


Jailhouse lawyer Jeremy Pinson has spearheaded the litigation effort to reform the BOP’s system and end the infamous lockdown programs. His advocacy has been met with violent reprisal, harassment and retaliation to no avail. Now, in the ultimate move to silence his dissent, the government seeks to house him in the most secure prison in the U.S., the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum (Ad-Max or ADX) in the mountains of Colorado where the government routinely suppresses free speech by cutting off mail, telephone and visitation access to the media and the public.


Sign the petition today, asking President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and BOP Director Harley Lappin to respect the rule of law, protect civil rights and end the oppressive SMU programs.

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The Red Army Faction, A Documentary History
Projectiles for the People

by André Moncourt and J. Smith

Kersplebedeb Publishing and PM Press 2009

more about Projectiles for the People	order for $34.95 from left wing books dot net

The first in a two-volume series, this is by far the most in-depth political history of the Red Army Faction ever made available in English.

Projectiles for the People starts its story in the days following World War II, showing how American imperialism worked hand in glove with the old pro-Nazi ruling class, shaping West Germany into an authoritarian anti-communist bulwark and launching pad for its aggression against Third World nations. The volume also recounts the opposition that emerged from intellectuals, communists, independent leftists, and then – explosively – the radical student movement and countercultural revolt of the 1960s.

It was from this revolt that the Red Army Faction emerged, an underground organization devoted to carrying out armed attacks within the Federal Republic of Germany, in the view of establishing a tradition of illegal, guerilla resistance to imperialism and state repression. Through its bombs and manifestos the RAF confronted the state with opposition at a level many activists today might find difficult to imagine.

For the first time ever in English, this volume presents all of the manifestos and communiqués issued by the RAF between 1970 and 1977, from Andreas Baader’s prison break, through the 1972 May Offensive and the 1975 hostage-taking in Stockholm, to the desperate, and tragic, events of the “German Autumn” of 1977. The RAF’s three main manifestos – The Urban Guerilla Concept, Serve the People, and Black September – are included, as are important interviews with Spiegel and le Monde Diplomatique, and a number of communiqués and court statements explaining their actions.

Providing the background information that readers will require to understand the context in which these events occurred, separate thematic sections deal with the 1976 murder of Ulrike Meinhof in prison, the 1977 Stammheim murders, the extensive use of psychological operations and false-flag attacks to discredit the guerilla, the state’s use of sensory deprivation torture and isolation wings, and the prisoners’ resistance to this, through which they inspired their own supporters and others on the left to take the plunge into revolutionary action.

Drawing on both mainstream and movement sources, this book is intended as a contribution to the comrades of today – and to the comrades of tomorrow – both as testimony to those who struggled before and as an explanation as to how they saw the world, why they made the choices they made, and the price they were made to pay for having done so.

Product Details:
Edited by J. Smith and André Moncourt
Forewords by Russell "Maroon" Shoats and Bill Dunne
Published by Kersplebedeb and PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-029-0
Pub Date February 2009
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 736 pages
Size: 6 by 9
Subjects: Politics, Armed Struggle

The work that was begun on this website several years ago has largely been superceded by the publication of Projectiles for the People -- eventually we hope to upload all of this work to this site, but that may take a while. In the meantime, what follows are the older, less refined translations of a selection of the RAF's documents.