3 NY State Political Prisoners Statements to Occupy 4 Prisoners

The New York Prison Justice Network and New York Taskforce for Political Prisoners received these statements of support for Occupy4Prisoners from NY state political prisoners Herman Bell, David Gilbert and Jalil Muntaqim. The statements (along with one from Mumia Abu-Jamal and several from other prisoners) will be read at the NYC and Philadelphia rallies today, and in Albany tomorrow. They are also for use at any other Occupy4Prisoners rally anywhere.

Solidarity to OWS, Wherever You Be
Herman Bell
Great Meadow (Comstock) Correctional Facility, February 20, 2012

In your pushback for social justice, you give us hope. Failure to claim your rights
is failure to know whether they exist or not. Abstract terms though they be, you make
them real. A parasitic social order has fully emerged and affixed itself to our existence
and now requires our unquestioned loyalty and obedience to its will. And we have come
dangerously close to complying.

Ordinary people doing uncommonly brave things have rekindled our hopes that
we can do better this time in safeguarding the public trust. Far too many of us have
grown complacent in our civic and moral responsibility, which explains in part how Wall
Street, big banks, and corporations, in political connivance, have gotten away with so
much. So we have to take some responsibility for that.

I think we are now coming to understand that. Your occupation in these troubling
times calls attention to much of what is wrong in our society. So keep it tight: no elitism,
no arrogance, no divisiveness, and consult the elders as you go forth, because youth often
do the wrong thing for the right reason.

And in a clear, unwavering voice wherever you go, wherever you speak, wherever
you occupy, demand release of our political prisoners, for they are the embodiment of our
movement’s resolve. And don’t let anyone punk you out, because what you do matters.
Big jobs call for big people, and you already stand pretty tall in my eyes.

Solidarity –
Herman Bell

Herman Bell, a former member of the Black Panther Party, has been a political
prisoner since 1973. He is currently imprisoned in Comstock, NY.
***************************************************
To Occupy Wall Street/ Occupy Everywhere
From Behind the Walls
David Gilbert

Auburn Correctional Facility, February 20, 2012

Your creativity, energy, and love of humanity bring warm sunshine to many of us behind these prison walls. You’ve eloquently and concisely articulated the central problem: a society run by the 1% and based on corporate greed as opposed to human need. That obscenity of power and purpose creates countless specific and urgent concerns. Among those, the criminal injustice system is not just a side issue but essential to how the 1% consolidate power.

The U.S. mania for putting people behind bars is counterproductive in its stated goal of public safety. A system based on punishment and isolation breeds anger and then difficulty in functioning upon return to society – things that generate more crime. The U.S., which imprisons people at about seven times the rate of other industrialized countries, has a higher rate of violent crime. Punishment does not work. A transformative, community-based justice model would be more effective as well as more humane. It would both support victims and work with offenders, to enable them to function well and make a positive contribution.

Although the punitive approach does not make communities safe, it has served the rulers well. In the same 30 years that the 1% nearly tripled their share of U.S. national income—with global inequities far steeper—the number of people behind bars in the U.S. went up from about 500,00 to 2.3 million. It’s no coincidence. The “war on crime” started in 1969 as a code for attacking the Black Liberation Movement, at a moment when that movement was at the front of a widespread wave of radical social action which seriously threatened the dominance of the 1%. Mass incarceration, especially of people of color, was an important part of the 1%’s strategy for holding on to their wealth and power.

The second way the criminal injustice system works to keep the powerful in power is that as the 1% steal more and more of humanity’s wealth, they face the pressing political need of deflecting attention from their colossal crimes. Over the past 30 years mainstream politics have been driven by a series of coded forms of racial scapegoating—against “criminals,” welfare mothers, immigrants, Muslims, the poor who get token concessions from the government—to turn the frustration and anger of the majority of white people away from the rulers and toward the racially constructed “other.” Confronting that demagogy and hatred is critical to resisting the
1%’s offensive.

As activists, we often grapple with a tension between prioritizing the needs of the most oppressed—based on race, class, gender sexuality, ability—and maintaining a universal vision and broad unity. But those two important concerns are not in contradiction. The only road to principled and lasting unity is through dismantling the barriers formed by the series of particular and intense oppressions. The path to our commonality is solidarity based on recognition of—and opposition to—the ways this society makes us unequal. Our challenge is to forge this synthesis in practice, on the ground, in the daily work of building the movement of the 99%. With an embrace to you and your inspiring stand, one love,
David

David Gilbert, a former member of Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground, has been a political prisoner since 1981. He is currently incarcerated in Auburn, NY.
************************************
America is a Prison Industrial Complex
Jalil A. Muntaqim

Attica Correctional Facility, February 20, 2012

The 2.3 million U.S. citizens in prison represent more than a problem of criminality. Rather, the
human toll of the U.S. prison industrial complex addresses and indicts the very foundation of
America’s history.

In 1865, the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution served to institutionalize prisons as a
slave system. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for
crime….shall exist within the United States.”

This Amendment evolved out of the Civil War allegedly to abolish chattel slavery. However,
since that time, prisons have become an industrial complex. As an industry, its investors are
financial institutions such as “Goldman Sachs & Co., Prudential Insurance Co. of America, Smith Barney Shearson, Inc., and Merrill Lynch & Co. Understand, these investors in this slave industry in 1994 are no different from investors in the slave system prior to 1865.

The political system supports this industry by passing laws that enhance criminal penalties,
increase penal incarceration and restrict parole. Former U.S. President Clinton’s 1985 Crime Bill
effectively caused the criminalization of poverty, exponentially increasing the number of people
being sent to prison. On May 12, 1994, the Wall Street Journal featured an article entitled,
“Making Crime Pay: Triangle of Interests Created Infrastructure to Fight Lawlessness; Cities See
Jobs; Politicians Sense a Popular Issue and Businesses Cash In—The Cold War of the ‘90s.” The
article clearly indicated how prisons have become a profitable industry, including so-called
private prisons.

Given this reality, the struggle to abolish prisons is a struggle to change the very fabric of
American society. It is a struggle to remove the financial incentive—the profitability of the
prison/slave system. This will essentially change how the U.S. addresses the issue of poverty, of
ethnic inequality, and misappropriation of tax dollars. It will speak to the reality that the prison
system is a slave system, a system that dehumanizes the social structure and denigrates America’s moral social values.

The prison system today is an industry that, as did chattel slavery, profits off the misery and
suffering of other human beings. From politicians to bankers to the business investment
community, the prison industrial complex is a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise, all of
which has been sanctioned by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

It is imperative that those of you here come to terms with the reality that America is the prison
industrial complex, and that the silence and inaction of Americans is complicit in maintaining a
system that in its very nature is inhumane.

Abolish the American prison industrial complex!!
All Power to the People! All Power to the People!
All Power to the People!

Jalil Muntaquim (Anthony Bottom), a former member of the Black Panther Party, has
been a political prisoner since 1971. He is the author of “We Are Our Own Liberators,
and is currently incarcerated in Attica, NY.

SF - Sun 1/29 - New David Gilbert Book Launch - Love and Struggle

Join us for a Book Launch & Celebration of

Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond
By David Gilbert

"Gilbert adds heart and bone to the stuff of history." - Mumia Abu Jamal

January 29th, 4-6pm
518 Valencia

this event is free and wheelchair accessible

with readers/panelists:

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, historian and author of Outlaw Woman and Red Dirt
Terry Bisson, editor of Love and Struggle
Molly McClure, anti-racist organizer with Catalyst Project
Sanyika Bryant, organizer with Malcolm X
Grassroots Movement and Causa Justa::Just Cause
moderated by Claude Marks, Freedom Archives

About the Book (available now from PM Press and at the event)

A nice Jewish boy from suburban Boston—hell, an Eagle Scout!—David Gilbert arrived at Columbia University just in time for the explosive Sixties. From the early anti-Vietnam War protests to the founding of SDS, from the Columbia Strike to the tragedy of the Townhouse, Gilbert was on the scene: as organizer, theoretician, and above all, activist. He was among the first militants who went underground to build the clandestine resistance to war and racism known as “Weatherman.” And he was among the last to emerge, in captivity, after the disaster of the 1981 Brinks robbery, an attempted expropriation that resulted in four deaths and long prison terms. In this extraordinary memoir, written from the maximum-security prison where he has lived for almost thirty years, David Gilbert tells the intensely personal story of his own Long March from liberal to radical to revolutionary.

Today a beloved and admired mentor to a new generation of activists, he assesses with rare humor, with an understanding stripped of illusions, and with uncommon candor the errors and advances, terrors and triumphs of the Sixties and beyond. It’s a battle that was far from won, but is still not lost: the struggle to build a new world, and the love that drives that effort. A cautionary tale and a how-to as well, Love and Struggle is a book as candid, as uncompromising, and as humane as its author.

Praise:

"Gilbert adds heart and bone to the stuff of history." —Mumia Abu Jamal

"Required reading for anyone interested in the history of radical movements in this country. An honest, vivid portrait of a life spent passionately fighting for justice. In telling his story, Gilbert also reveals the history of left struggles in the 1960s and 70s, and imparts important lessons for today's activists." —Jordan Flaherty, author of Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six

“David’s is a unique and necessary voice forged in the growing American gulag, the underbelly of the 'land of the free,' offering a focused and unassailable critique as well as a vision of a world that could be but is not yet—a place of peace and love, joy and justice.” —Bill Ayers, author of Fugitive Days and Teaching Toward Freedom

“Like many of his contemporaries, David Gilbert gambled his life on a vision of a more just and generous world. His particular bet cost him the last three decades in prison, and whether or not you agree with his youthful decision, you can be the beneficiary of his years of deep thought, reflection, and analysis on the reality we all share. If there is any benefit to prison, what some refer to as ‘the involuntary monastery,’ it may well look like this book. I urge you to read it.” —Peter Coyote, actor, author of Sleeping Where I Fall

"This book should stimulate learning from our political prisoners, but more importantly it challenges us to work to free them, and in doing so take the best of our history forward." —Susan Rosenberg, author of An American Radical

About the Author:

One of America’s most celebrated political prisoners since his appearance in the Academy Award nominated film, The Weather Underground, David Gilbert is also the author of No Surrender, a book of essays on politics and history. He can be reached at NY’s Auburn Correctional Facility as 83-A-6158.

About Boots Riley (foreword):

A popular leader in the progressive struggle for radical change through culture, Boots Riley is best known as the leader of The Coup, the seminal hip-hop group from Oakland, CA. Billboard Magazine declared the group "the best hip-hop act of the past decade." Riley recently teamed with Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine) to form the revolutionary new group, Street Sweeper Social Club.

Product Details:

Author: David Gilbert
Foreword by Boots Riley
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-319-2
Published: January 2012
Format: Paperback
Size: 9 by 6
Page count: 352 Pages
Subjects: Autobiography, Politics-Activism

David Gibert's Love and Struggle

January 02, 2012 Counterpunch

A Brother With A Furious Mind

by RON JACOBS

In 1981, a group of revolutionaries robbed a Brink’s armored truck near Nyack, NY. In the ensuing confusion and attempt to flee, three people died from gunfire. A couple days later, one of the revolutionaries was killed by law enforcement. The robbery itself was planned and carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army: a group of former Black Panthers who had chosen armed struggle, and the May 19 Communist organization, which was founded by white revolutionaries also dedicated to armed struggle. One of those members was former Weather Underground member David Gilbert. Gilbert is currently serving a sentence of 75 years to life in the New York State prison system. Other May 19th members arrested in relation to the robbery have been paroled or pardoned.

This month PM Press, the Oakland, CA. publisher founded by AK Press founder Ramsey Kanaan and others, is publishing Gilbert’s memoirs. The book, titled Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond, is certain to be included in the top tier of books having to do with the period of US history known as the Sixties. There is no self-pity within these pages , but lots of self-reflection. In what can only be considered a refreshing approach, Gilbert takes full responsibility for the path he has chosen and explains that path in an intelligently political manner and with a decidedly leftist understanding. Love and Struggle combines objective history, personal memory, and a critical perspective into a narrative that is at once an adventuresome tale and a political guide through the past fifty years.

Gilbert begins his story by describing his youth and his developing awareness that the United States was not what he had been led to believe it was. An Eagle Scout who believed the myths inherent in American exceptionalism, he was unprepared for the cognitive dissonance he underwent while watching the attacks by law enforcement on civil rights marchers in the US South. That sense of conflict deepened when he headed off to Columbia University. By 1965, angered by the US war on the Vietnamese and armed with a well-researched understanding of why the US was really involved there, Gilbert was organizing Columbia students to join antiwar protests. Like many of his contemporaries, by 1968 he was an anti-imperialist and working full-time against the war in Vietnam and racism in the United States. By 1969, he was one of the original members of Weatherman and by April 1970 he was underground.

Gilbert tells his story with a hard-learned humility. Occasionally interjecting his personal life–his loves and failures, his relationship with his family–with his political journey, it is the politics which are foremost in this memoir. A true

revolutionary, every other aspect of Gilbert’s life is subsumed to the revolution. This kind of life is not an easy one. Indeed, it arguably makes the life of an ascetic monk look easy by comparison. After all, the monk is only trying to change himself, while the committed revolutionary wants to change the world into one where justice prevails; a world that by its very structure resists such change.

Love and Struggle carefully examines the history of the periods Gilbert has lived in. From the early days of the antiwar movement and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to the public street-fighting arrogance of early Weatherman; from Weatherman’s transition to the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) and its growing isolation from the New Left it was a part of; and from the post-Vietnam war US left to the Brink robbery and its aftermath, Gilbert keeps the politics front and center in his text. In his discussion of the period between Weather’s publication of its essential work Prairie Fire and its immediate aftermath, Gilbert provides an insight into the debates inside WUO and among its supporters in the years after the peace treaty was signed with northern Vietnam. His portrayal of the differences around theory being debated in the WUO serve as a broader description of the debates raging throughout the new left as the US intervention in Vietnam’s anti-colonial struggle neared its end. For those of us who were politically involved at the time, the debates ring with familiarity: national liberation over class; the interaction between race and class in the US; the oppression of women and white male privilege. In a testimony to his writing abilities, Gilbert’s discussion of the issues makes them as alive in this book as those arguments actually were in the mid- 1970s. His keen political sense reveals the interplay between different political perspectives, understandings of history, and the always present contests of ego. The political arguments outlined by Gilbert (especially when describing the battle inside WUO) are still relevant today. Their echoes are present in the General Assemblies of the Occupy Wall Street movement and in forums more specific and less specific across the nation. Gilbert’s presentation of the essential WUO arguments that challenges the overriding role of class in the nature of oppression is not only reasoned and impassioned, it is worth studying and makes points useful to the future of anti-imperialist struggle in the United States Furthermore, the book includes an ongoing and excellent discussion of the nature of white supremacy and white skin privilege. For anyone who has spent time involved in the Occupy movement the past few months, the relevance of this latter discussion is all too familiar.

For those looking for a sensationalist account of life as a revolutionary or a confession, they should look elsewhere. David Gilbert’s memoir is a political account of a political life. Every action undertaken, every decision made is examined via the eye of a leftist revolutionary. This does not mean there are no page-turning moments in the book, however. Indeed, the sections describing Weather’s move underground and Gilbert’s daily life off the grid are interesting and revealing, as are those describing the attempts by WUO members to evade capture. The descriptions of Gilbert’s clandestine life and his subsequent moving back aboveground and then back under are also riveting.

Underlying the entire narrative is a current of what is best described as self-criticism; of Weather, the New Left, armed struggle and, ultimately, of Gilbert himself. As anyone who has experienced something akin to a self-criticism session can attest, such sessions can be emotionally wrenching episodes of retribution and petty anger. They can also be tremendously useful when conducted humanely. Gilbert’s written attempts at this exercise in Love and Struggle lean toward the latter expression while also proviing interesting and useful considerations to the aforementioned issues (along with issues related to those criticisms). Gilbert’s realization that his ego occasionally caused him to make decisions that weren’t based on politically sound rationales is something any radical leader should take into account. In fact, Gilbert’s continuing struggle with his ego and it’s place in the decisions he made while free reminded me of a maxim relayed to me a couple times in my life; once by an organizer for the Revolutionary Union in Maryland and once by a friend from the Hog Farm commune. That maxim is simply: if you start believing that the revolution can’t exist without you, then it’s time to leave center stage and go back to doing grunt work where nobody knows (or cares) who you are. In other words, you are not the revolution so take your ego out of it

In the well-considered catalog of books dealing honestly with the period of history known as the Sixties in the United States, Love and Struggle is an important addition. Borrowing his technique from memoir, confession, and objective history-telling, David Gilbert has provided the reader of history with the tale of a person and a time. Simultaneously, he has given the reader inclined to political activism a useful, interesting, and well-told example of one human’s revolutionary commitment to social change no matter what the cost.

Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way the Wind Blew: a History of the Weather Underground and Short Order Frame Up. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His collection of essays and other musings titled Tripping Through the American Night is now available and his new novel is The Co-Conspirator’s Tale. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press. He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com.