Posts Tagged ‘Attica (Prison Uprising)’
A writing by CCF members for the US prison mobilization and anarchist prisoners in Italy (Greece)
Sunday, October 30th, 2016
NON SERVIAM – I WILL NOT SERVE YOU
“Worse than enslavement is getting used to it…”
Life in the modern civilized world comprises false representations, false patterns, and false formalities. Formalities that determine our upbringing within a family, our education, our professional career, our relationships, our emotions, our smiles or tears. Patterns that castrate the scope of our perception so that our thoughts are directed onto a moving walkway going only one direction. Representations that disguise the system’s functions and pathogenies so that we see life unfold only on stage, and never wonder what’s hidden backstage. So, the thousands of suicides of desperate debtors is just another statistic among the unpleasant consequences of the economic crisis, the impoverishment of the so-called third world is just an unfortunate fact, and its wounds will heal by charity organizations, the countless dead of modern crusades, the unfortunate victims of the absurdity of war, and the convict slaves in American prisons are simply antisocial elements that provide social services to Democracy.
Prison itself is exile from life; a non-place and non-time behind the screen of a decent society, to make the ugliness that bothers the eyes of reputable citizens unseeable. Prisons are a proof of the perverse intelligence of authoritarian minds. They’re built onto walls echoing the screaming and weeping of thousands of people who’ve learned to sleep with anguish and despair. Prison is the country of captivity, the country where one learns to kneel before the “Forbidden”, a landfill for the disposal of human waste, an industrial dump where the social machine’s hazardous waste ends up. For most people, however, for all those who never learned to doubt, to question, to look beyond the obvious, prison is a security wall necessary to protect their peaceful and quiet life. (more…)
Tags: Athens, Attica (Prison Uprising), Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, International Solidarity, Korydallos Prison, Letter, Operation Scripta Manent, Prison Labour, Prison Labour Strike, Racism
Posted in Prison Struggle
A statement in support of the US prison mobilization by CCF-FAI/FRI Urban Guerrilla Cell (Greece)
Sunday, October 30th, 2016
Soledad Brothers (from left to right): John Clutchette, George L. Jackson (September 23, 1941 — August 21, 1971) and Fleeta Drumgo
“Gentlemen, the Dragon Will Fly Out”
In Support of September 9th Mobilization in US Prisons
“Gentlemen, the dragon will fly out” is a saying attributed to prisoner George Jackson. On August 21st 1971, holding a pistol, he opened all the cells in an adjustment unit, taking jailers hostage. George Jackson was killed in his attempt to escape…
Since September 9th, prisoners in the United States have called for action against slavery.
A multitude of “invisible” slaves (there are about 2.5 million prisoners in the United States) are condemned to forced labor, or as jailers of their own selves (internal work in prisons, cleaning, repairs, technical operations), or as cheap meat in the service of corporate behemoths (Honda, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Starbucks, and many others). Besides, the 13th amendment to the US constitution clearly states: “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…” To put it simply, detainees are considered slaves as part of their punishment.
Prisons in America—and not just there–aren’t only bars, walls, surveillance cameras or lockdowns. They’re also an enormous lucrative business. Prisons are a dirty dealing for continuously supplied shackled labor force without name and without voice. They represent a modern slave trade, making billion-dollar profit, that not only supplies the companies-caretakers but also the industry of lawyers, judges, cops, corrections officers, private prisons. (more…)
Tags: Attica (Prison Uprising), Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Fleeta Drumgo, George Jackson, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, International Solidarity, John Clutchette, Korydallos Prison, Letter, Michael Kimble, Prima Linea, Prison Industrial Complex, Prison Labour, Prison Labour Strike, Racism, Red Army Faction (RAF), USA, Weather Underground
Posted in Prison Struggle
US Prisoners Call for Coordinated Work Stoppage
Monday, April 4th, 2016
United States – Last Friday prisoners across the US released a call to action announcing a nationally coordinated prisoner protest on the anniversary of the Attica prison uprising. On the heels of a similar announcement of an April 4th workstoppage issued by Texas prisoners, the call to action states that “[s]lavery is alive and well in the prison system, but by the end of this year, it won’t be anymore.” It calls for prisoners to “to stop being a slave, to let the crops rot in the plantation fields, to go on strike and cease reproducing the institutions of your confinement.”
The coordinated strike is called for September 9th 2016, the forty-fifth anniversary of the most infamous prisoner revolt in US history. The announcement references Attica repeatedly, comparing recent upsurge of prisoner protest movements (from historic workstoppages in Georgia and Alabama to massive hunger strikes in California) to the years of prisoner unrest surrounding the flashpoint of the Attica rebellion. (more…)
Tags: Attica (Prison Uprising), Prison Labour, Prison Labour Strike, Texas, USA
Posted in Prison Struggle