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April
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April
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CALIFORNIA PRISON HUNGER STRIKERS
PROPOSE ‘10 CORE DEMANDS’ FOR THE
OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT
By Heshima Denham, Zaharibu Dorrough
and Kambui Robinson (December 6, 2011)
“The Constitution, then, illustrates
the complexity of this American system: that it serves the interests of a
wealthy elite, but also does enough for
small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers to build
a broad base of support. The slightly
prosperous people who make up this
base of support are buffers against
the Blacks, the Natives, the very poor
Whites. They enable the elite to keep
control with a minimum of coercion,
a maximum of law – all made palatable by this fanfare of patriotism and
unity.”
Howard Zinn

G

reetings, Brothers and Sisters. A
firm, warm and solid embrace of
revolutionary love is extended to
you all. These words by Brother Howard
Zinn are particularly relevant to the survival of the evolving Occupy Wall Street
Movement, as these truths have been integral to the success of populist organizing in
the U.S. historically and are central to the
proposal we’re putting forward here.
Most of you, at this point, are familiar
with the NARN Collective Think Tank
(NCTT) from the many progressive programs and ideas that have come out of this
body from both Pelican Bay SHU and here
in Corcoran SHU, most recently our work
in the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity
Coalition. Like the Arab Spring, which is

still rocking the Middle East, and our own
struggle to abolish indefinite confinement
in sensory deprivation SHU torture units
(see the five core demands from Prisoner
Hunger Strike Solidarity), the Occupy Wall
Street Movement expresses a fundamental
rule of materialist dialectics as they apply
to social development – i.e., the transformation of quantity into quality – expressed
eloquently by the Honorable Comrade
George Lester Jackson some 40 years ago:
“(C)onsciousness is directly proportional
to oppression.”
The purpose of the NCTT primarily is to
act as a clearinghouse for progressive and
meaningful solutions to the ills of society
from our unique and scientific perspective.
As we have followed and supported the
Occupy Wall Street Movement, discussing
its great potential, analyzing its character,
composition and socio-economic motive
force, predicting the inevitable violent reactionary response of the fascist state in
defense of its capitalist masters, the ruling
1 percent have never, nor will they ever,
concede anything, surely not substantive
changes, without struggle which requires
unity of purpose, broad-based organization, fluid strategy and effective tactics.
Populist and progressive movements in
this nation have succeeded or failed, lived
or died, based on how effectively they understood and adapted to this reality. We
learned this in the epoch following the
Civil War as reconstruction gains were effectively repealed and Jim Crow law was
introduced.

The populist movements that gave birth
to the People Party, the power of organized
labor and the Dorr Rebellion learned this
very hard lesson on the heels of the Haymarket Massacre. The Civil Rights Movement taught us the necessity of broad-based
organization and accurate agreement of the
opposition’s center of gravity: their point
of weakness. Only a few years later we
learned not to underestimate the power of
the ruling 1 percent and insidiousness of its
state tools when the Counter-Intelligence
Program (Cointelpro) dismantled the Black
Liberation Movement, imprisoned many of
us, and ushered in the world of individualistic pursuits, greed, corruption, gross
inequality and mass incarceration you all
have now inherited.
As we watched the National (International) Day of Action unfold and the days
that have followed, witnessing the predictable brutal response of the tools of the 1
percent as they beat young men and women bloody, pepper sprayed and pummeled
peaceful youth at UC Davis, destroyed the
people’s property across the nation, and
even peppersprayed and dragged away
68-year-old women and pregnant ladies
alike, with great effort we detached from
our rage and analyzed the comments, ideas,
and responses of various political pundits,
common people on the streets, agents of
the state and our protestors themselves.
Three things immediately became obvious from that analysis: 1) The mass media
and far too many of the various pundits
were in essence counting on the national

Occupy movements to just peter out and
fizzle away. It was this message that those
who own these mass media outlets – the 1
percent – want to be disseminated as broadly as possible to undermine mass support
for the movement.
2) We, the 99 percent, have no intention
of going anywhere until substantive change
is realized, and though most in this nation
not involved directly in the occupations
themselves agree with our ideas in opposition to corporate greed and institutional
inequality, there were no clearly articulated demands around which the movement
could organize the broader masses. 3) This
lack of clearly articulated demands and coherent strategic and tactical organization by
the national Occupy Movement was undermining its intent, diluting its potential, and
degrading its motive force.
This state of affairs left unaddressed, as
in most every similar movement in the U.S.
historically, will lead to its isolation. This
cannot be allowed. The first step in defeating an enemy as powerful, all-encompassing and organized as the ruling 1 percent
is understanding the nature of struggle and
the basis of their power. When you analyze
opponents, you must see beyond the superficial for the origins of that power, the point
of vulnerability upon which it is based.
Striking this point of vulnerability will inflict disproportionate damage.
It must be understood that substantive,
radical, progressive social change is no different than warfare and warfare is a form
of power. Power systems, no matter their
myriad manifestations, share the same basic structures. The most visible thing about
them is their appearance, what is seen and
felt.
Great power systems first try to ignore
challenges to them, to dismiss them. When
this fails, they opt to crush them. This is
exactly what the Occupy Movement has
experienced thus far. But all too often this
outward display is a deceptive fabrication,
a manifestation of insecurity, since power
dares not expose its weaknesses.
The key lies in determining what their
point of vulnerability is, and to do so you
must understand the structure of the power
system and the culture in which it operates. I began this discussion with a concise
analysis of just this point by Howard Zinn.
The real point of vulnerability in American democracy is the social and political
support of its citizens. Unfortunately, the
key apparatus in influencing public opinion
is the American mass media – yet, ironi2

cally, they are equally vulnerable to the
power of the mass support of the people.
The key factor thus far in failing to harness this mass support is the lack of broadbased, articulable demands around which
the uncommitted people who may support
our message but not our movement can be
educated, organized and mobilized to join
the movement and transform not only the
nature and structure of U.S. society, but the
WORLD.
To that end the NCTT Corcoran SHU
has made a comprehensive analysis of
statements from participants of all the national Occupy movements and some of
those abroad and compiled these ideas
into 10 core demands of the Occupy Wall
Street Movement national coalition. We
call on you brothers and sisters to disseminate these 10 core demands to all the
Occupy movements across the nation and
the world, and we call on all the Occupy
movements to convene a national forum
– which can take place online or at a national convention – to discuss the adoption
of these 10 core demands as the definitive
goals and organizing points around which
the movement is based and the next level of
our struggle is to be waged. These 10 core
demands can be modified, augmented or
amended to take into account the broadest
cross-section of the 99 percent possible and
the collective will of the movement:
The 10 Core Demands of the
Occupy Wall Street Movement
National Coalition
1. We want full employment with a living wage for all people who will work,
and for employment to be enforced as the
right which it is. The U.S. Declaration of
Independence states in part “that all men
… are endowed … with certain inalienable
Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed.” “Life”
is thus a right guaranteed by this nation and
the means to live – work, making a living
wage for all of those who will and can work
– must be equally guaranteed as the right
which it is – as must a guaranteed income
for those who can’t work. This is the responsibility of the federal government. If
the corporate U.S. businessmen will not
provide full employment even as they sit on
trillions of dollars in cash reserves fleeced
from the surplus value of labor, then the
means of production should be taken from
them and placed in the community so the

99 percent of the people can organize and
employ all the people, ensuring a quality
standard of life for all.
2. We want an end to institutional racism and race- and class-based disparities in
access to, and quality of, labor, education,
health care, criminal defense, political empowerment, technology and healthy food.
We recognize institutional racism – the
U.S. race caste system – and systemic class
disparities in the U.S. capitalist structure
as not simply an obstacle to equitable educational opportunities, labor access, wage
equality, proportionate rates of chronic
disease management, access to quality
and preventable health care services, nonpredatory community policing, equitable
treatment of criminal offenders, access to
the political process for all, access to communications technology, the internet and
fresh, unprocessed foods but as structural
features of U.S. market capitalism primarily designed to prevent broad class cooperation between the 99 percent from various racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
We will no longer allow this divide and rule
arrangement to govern the socio-economic
relationships upon which the nature and
structure of U.S. society is based.
3. We want decent and affordable housing for all people and for it to be enforced
as the right which it is. We recognize that
housing, like living wage employment, is
a fundamental necessity of life and as such
a right that we have invested this government with securing on our behalf. Instead,
government has consistently sided with
those on Wall Street, who are responsible
for the single greatest loss of housing in
the nation’s history, while federal, state and
local officials have in essence criminalized homelessness and chronic poverty and
made a practice of attacking, destroying
the property of and displacing the homeless wherever they’ve tried to erect shelters
in this locked, anti-poor society. Since it
was corporate greed, government deregulation and financial speculators that led to
the creation of exotic financial instruments
like credit default swaps and sub-prime
loan bundles which fleeced the 99 percent
of much of their wealth and home equity,
the government should mandate a “cost of
living” readjustment to home equity debt
on all U.S. homes so what the people owe
actually reflects what these properties are
now worth. This would eliminate “underwater” homeowners and bail out the 99
percent of the people for a change. Simultaneously, vacated and empty federal hous¡Roca!

ing authority properties (FHA) should be
made into cooperatives so that our communities, with government aid, can create and
build decent housing for all.
4. We want affordable and equal access
to higher education for all and access to education that teaches the true history of colonialism, chattel slavery, repression of organized labor, the use of police repression
and imprisonment as tools of capitalist exploitation, and the perpetuation of imperialism in the development and maintenance of
modern U.S. power systems and corporate
financial markets. As current trends in the
national unemployment rate indicate – for
the 99 percent nationally, the rate is 14 percent for Latinos, 17 percent for New Afrikans (Blacks), yet only 4 percent for those
with a college degree – higher education
has a direct correlation to socio-economic
opportunity and prosperity. Since equal opportunity is a fundamental right of U.S. citizenship, the 99 percent should have equal
access to higher education without speculative corporate profiteering in industries
related to higher education driving up tuition costs and student loan interest rates to
usurious levels, leaving most in perpetual
debt and simply pricing the very prospect
of higher education out of reach for those
in communities of color and the poor.
There should be a universal higher education system open to all based on their
capacity to pay with tuitions set at that
capacity level, while not barring anyone
for an inability to pay. Simultaneously, the
usurious debt incurred by students who
clearly have no capacity to pay at a sustainable rate should have those debts forgiven
in full. Our public education system should
give all our people a knowledge of the true
nature and structure of U.S. capitalist society and its legacy of injustice, genocide,
exploitation, intentional underdevelopment, unjustifiable wars of imperialist aggression to secure new markets, resources
and spheres of influence, bloody conquest,
ecological mismanagement, slavery and
murder in service to the development and
maintenance of the molding of greed that is
the 1 percent ruling elite.
5. We want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of oppressed
people in the U.S., particularly in the New
Afrikan (Black), Latino, immigrant and
underclass communities and among those
protesting in this nation. We recognize the
police and other state paramilitary agencies
– sheriffs, FBI, correctional guards etc. –
are, and have always been, the enforcement
Vol. 1 Number 3

army of the ruling 1 percent. This was again
proven when these fascist forces moved nationally, en masse, to attack, pepper spray,
beat, destroy the property of, arrest and attempt to crush the national Occupy Movement and its supporters at the two-month
anniversary of the worldwide action and
every day since. We recognize such brutal and unwarranted treatment is the daily
existence of New Afrikan (Black), Latino,
immigrant and underclass communities
and people in this nation now, and historically, all to ensure the 1 percent “keeps us
in our place,” the unfortunate victims of the
race/class arrangement.
Self-defense is a human right and both
the action and means are guaranteed by
the U.S. Constitution and state laws (see
the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and California Penal Code Section 50). We believe community organized
oversight and self-defense forces should be
organized to monitor and record all police
interactions with the people and defend
them against ruling class directed and racist attacks when necessity dictates. The
hypocrisy of the government and media is
exposed as they criticize Syria, China and
Iran for attacking peaceful protestors while
they do the same across the U.S. daily. We
will suffer no more attacks like those at UC
Davis, no more Scott Olsens, Fly Benzos or
Oscar Grants to be injured or killed at the
hands of the tools of the 1 percent.
6. We want an end to the expansion of the
prison industrial complex, as a profit base
– from our tax dollars – for the disposal of
surplus labor and the poor. We want an end
to the use of indefinite solitary confinement
torture units in the U.S. as they are inhumane and illegal. The mass incarceration of
people of color and the poor will no longer
be tolerated as an acceptable alternative
to enforcing socio-economic equality in
America. The disproportionate distribution
of wealth, privilege and opportunity in a
society is the origin of all crime. The U.S.
has one of the greatest disparities between
haves and have nots on earth. As a result,
the U.S. has the largest prison population
on the planet with some 2.7 million of our
citizens in prison, 67 percent of them New
Afrikans (Black) or Latinos, though they
constitute only 26 percent of the nation’s
population.
The prison population in the U.S. has exploded some 600 percent since 1981, with
state and federal prison budgets in excess
of hundreds of billions of our tax dollars a
year lining the pockets of corporate inter-

ests that build, supply and maintain these
prisons, jails, courts and staff, not to mention the labor aristocrats like the CCPOA
(California Correctional Peace Officers
Association) guards union, who’ve created a socio-economic and political power
base that guarantees their job security and
ever increasing salaries and benefits, while
maintaining a lobbying stranglehold on
state politicians. We recognize, in the face
of such a corrupt cabal of government and
business, the purpose of imprisonment in
the U.S. now has little to do with public
safety and rehabilitation and more to do
with the development of a self-perpetuating, poverty-fueled, recession-proof industry and an accompanying socio-political
accommodating labor aristocracy of prison
guards, cops and staff as a support base for
the interests of the ruling 1 percent.
Prison is a socially hostile microcosm
of society’s contradictions, possessing the
same race/class and state/class contradictions that currently define the socio-economic inequality that is capitalist Amerika.
Prisons serve as warehouses for surplus
labor, the poor and those who have been
forced to the bottom rung of society. It is
the systemic race/class disparities, intentional criminalization and underdevelopment of poor communities and social
apathy which have forced most offenders
into the underground economy as the only
viable option to survive. This is unacceptable and unsustainable, equally repugnant,
fundamentally inhumane, and illegal as the
continued gross violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture – to which the U.S.
is a signatory and we agree is the law of the
land – which prohibits long-term solitary
confinement for extracting information,
political views or as punishment for any
reason – which is the very purpose of SHU
units – as torture, but it is being practiced
in numerous U.S. prisons with government
approval. The continued indefinite confinement of human beings in SHUs, SMUs and
other supermax torture units must be abolished in the U.S., as they violate the basic
tenets of human rights this nation has sworn
to uphold. The basis of true rehabilitation,
such as tech and computer-based vocational programs, access to higher education
for prisoners and community-based parole
boards must become the new order of the
day. This is the only way to guarantee true
justice in an unjust social arrangement and
see our imprisoned citizens are capable of
making a meaningful contribution to our
society and prosperity.
3

7. We want an end to all corporate and financial influences in the political process in
the U.S. We recognize, since its inception,
the nature and structure of U.S. society has
been one of the rich, for the rich and by the
rich, in which the 99 percent have served as
a source of exploited labor and a consumer
market for the goods and services of those
who own the means of production. This
pattern of usurpations has evolved into a
political process in which public policies
and elected officials are more often than
not determined by lobbying dollars, manipulation of public opinion by corporate-controlled mass media, and the overwhelming
influence of financial markets and industries on policies and policymakers, effectively marginalizing the people, their interests and their will, reducing them to pawns
in a game of corporate pandering. This will
stop now. The U.S. will finally become a
nation of the people, for the people and by
the people, where only individual citizens
may have any influence in the nature and
structure of the democratic process in the
U.S. This means banning all lobbyists,
donors, financial market proxies, strategic
advisers and special interest groups from
local, state and federal electoral and legislative processes in the U.S. We are sick of
this “legalized” corruption.
8. We want an end to imperialist wars of
aggression and sending our youth off to kill
and die to enforce the economic interests of
big oil and other corporate concerns seeking new resources to exploit, new markets
to open for sale of their goods and services
and as an impetus to keep from addressing domestic ills. We recognize, as Bolton
Hall said, “If there is a war, you will furnish the corpses and the taxes and others
will get this glory. Speculators will make
money out of it, that is, out of you (us).”
Thousands of our young men and women
died in Iraq and across the Middle East
and caused the deaths, either intentionally or unintentionally, of many thousands
more Third World people, all based on the
lies of greedy and bloodthirsty politicians
with multiple ties to big oil and corporate
interests. The current administration has
only slightly modified this same imperialist
tendency by shifting it to a more palatable
target at the cost of billions of our tax dollars and thousands of our youth that could
have been contributing to the prosperity of
the nation and its people. We support our
young men and women, but we do not support imperialism.
9. We want a bottoms-up approach to
4

economic development and labor-capital
relations in the U.S. This nation is empowered by “we the people,” the 99 percent,
to secure our rights to life, liberty, and
prosperity; yet we recognize the state has
aligned itself so intimately for so long with
the exclusive interest of the ruling 1 percent
that it has become enamored exclusively to
a top-down approach to socio-economic
and political solutions which always favors
the rich first and everyone else when or if
possible. This has resulted in a 281 percent
increase in the growth of wealth in the top 1
percent of this nation, while the bottom 90
percent have seen their incomes flat over
the past 20 years. We recognize that this
fascist alliance between corporate capital
and government has become obstructive
to the ends of securing the rights of life
and prosperity to the 99 percent of this nation’s people and will now come to an end.
Socio-economic and political policy must
now uplift the quality of life from the bottom rung up – empowering the disenfranchised, providing opportunities for those
with no options and directing bailouts and
subsidies to the people, not banks and billionaires. We recognize the state has thus
far been a tool to guarantee the dominance
of one class over others, of the 1 percent
over the 99 percent, and that arrangement
will now come to an end.
10. We want a more equitable distribution of wealth, justice and opportunity at
every level of society, reflecting the objective reality that it’s the socio-economic,
political, intellectual and cultural contributions of the 99 percent upon which this
society stands. We recognize that there is
enough food in this nation that no one need
be hungry, enough unoccupied structures in
this nation that no one need be homeless,
enough educators, institutions, knowledge
and technology in this nation that no one
need be without a degree or skilled trade,
enough work to be done that no one needs
to be without a job; and it is only due to
the insistence of an entrenched, super-rich
1 percent and their stranglehold on every
institution and apparatus of this nation’s
infrastructure from the government to the
mass media that their opulence and privilege be maintained at the expense of the 99
percent. We recognize that this is not our
national reality, the ruling class has mismanaged our society – woefully and criminally mismanaged – and those in power at
every level are either unable or unwilling to
change the nature and structure of capitalist
society. So it falls to us, the 99 percent, to

forge a new basis upon which socio-economic relationships will be based, ushering in a new social order in Amerika and
around the world, that serves the interests
of all the people and not simply the privileged few.
It is our request that all of you please
send a copy of this proposal to each individual Occupy Movement coalition, which
includes but is not limited to Occupy Wall
Street (New York City), Occupy Oakland,
Occupy NOLA (New Orleans), Occupy
San Francisco, Occupy Boston, Occupy
L.A. (Los Angeles), Occupy Seattle, Occupy UC Davis, Occupy Phoenix, Occupy
Fresno, Occupy Cleveland, Occupy Chicago et al. Post a copy of this proposal online
at as many sites for the Occupy movement
as possible. Post it on Facebook, blog sites
and wherever social commentary is held.
In addition, we call on each individual
Occupy Movement to begin organizing in
and with the underclass communities in
your city or town and for all my brothers
and sisters in the ghettos, projects, barrios
and trailer parks across this nation to begin
organizing with Occupy Movement coalition reps around collective programs that
can serve to begin realizing these 10 core
demands by our unity and contributions
alone. The NCTT, both here in Corcoran
SHU and Pelican Bay SHU are committed to making meaningful contributions to
the development of such community action programs, which we will outline in our
next communication.
But what must be understood is social
movements of this nature are supported
only to the degree that their ideas find
resonance in the psychological structures
of the masses, but even this is not enough.
To ensure the realization of any substantive
change in the nature and structure of U.S.
capitalist society and to prevent this movement from being isolated and neutralized
by the forces of repression, it must be firmly embedded in as broad a cross-section of
this population as possible.
There are some 47 million people in
Amerika living below the poverty line, another 150 million or so barely getting by
– two thirds of this nation’s population, all
of them part of the 99 percent. It is here that
we will find our most lasting support, and
thus it is here that you must begin forging
meaningful ties. These are overwhelmingly
New Afrikan (Black), Latino, immigrant
and poor communities.
You champion us all with your ideas and
¡Roca!

the courage of your convictions, just as we
continue to support you with our sacrifices
and insight. It is now time to take the movement to its next evolution and ultimately to
its inevitable conclusion: victorious revolutionary change.
Your greatest power lies in your unity
and cooperation and ultimately your organizational ability. The power of the people
far surpasses all the repressive violence
of the Babylons attacking you/us or the
wealth of the 1 percent, who will stop at
nothing to silence us all.
This is a protracted struggle; there will
be no 90-day revolution here. Victory will
require sacrifice, tenacity and competent
strategic insight. The question you must
ask is, are you prepared to do what is necessary to win this struggle? If you answer
in the affirmative, commit to victory and
accept no other alternative. The people, as
we are, are with you. Until we win or don’t
lose, our love and solidarity to all those
who love freedom and fear only failures.

A CALL FOR AID
AND ASSISTANCE
FROM THE N.C.T.T.
CORCORAN SHU
Greetings, Brothers and Sisters.
firm, warm and solid embrace of
love and solidarity is extended to
you all. As you know we are in the
midst of a contentious struggle for social
justice and economic equality on multiple
fronts in this society, and around the world.
We have had both victories and setbacks.
Some as a result of the efforts of an organized and entrenched elite, others by our
own mistakes. Yet what is universally clear
from all of our successes: where we mass
the power of the people, where we’ve galvanized the political support of our friends
and neighbors, where we’ve forced corporate controlled mass media to take notice of
the will of the common man, it is THERE
where we have won.
It is in this spirit of mutual sacrifice and
collective success that we call upon you
now to stand with us and the forces of progressive social change. There are 2 upcoming events that we ask your assistance in
augmenting:
1. MARCH 20TH PRESS CONFERENCE ON U.N. PETITION ON BEHALF
OF CALIFORNIA PRISONERS IN AD-

A

Vol. 1 Number 3

MINISTRATIVE SEGREGATION AND
SECURITY HOUSING UNITS (SHU)
The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law has prepared a petition to
the United Nations Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention, in opposition to the
practice of long term solitary confinement
in SHU and Ad Seg units in California,
considered by most to be torture (and defined by treaty as such), in hopes it will
lead to an abolition of the practice, or an
improvement of conditions in the torture
units themselves.
What we are asking of each of you who
are reading these words is twofold:
(a) If you CAN get to the Ronald Reagan Building in Los Angeles, California on
March 20, at or before 11 a.m., PLEASE
DO. The larger the body of supporters in
attendance -- the greater the media coverage it will compel; the greater media coverage we can command -- the greater the
socio-political impact (both nationally and
globally) your actions will have.
(b) If there is not a petition drive in support of the U.N. Petition that you can sign
in your immediate environment -- we are
asking THAT YOU START ONE; either a
physical (paper) petition or on-line petition
and get as many signatures as you can on
it. It does NOT matter where in the nation
- or the world - you are, your help is needed. The U.N. is an international forum and
EVERY signature counts. Once completed,
please mail, fax or email the petition and
signatures to:
Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law
Attn: Peter A. Schey, Attorney at Law
(Bar # 58232)
256 South Occidental Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA. 90057
Tel: 213-388-8693 ext. 301
Fax: 213-386-9484
and Kendra Castaneda: Kendracastaneda55@gmail.com
Your petitions and signatures will then be
attached to the U.N. Petition and submitted
to the U.N. Working Group. Your cooperation is both needed and appreciated.
2. MAY 1ST GENERAL STRIKE IN
SUPPORT OF THE NATIONAL OCCUPY MOVEMENT:
On May 1st, the National Occupy Movement is calling for a general strike, and we
of course support them as we have from the
beginning. However, the continued decimation of occupy movement camps globally by the tools of the 1%, marginalization by corporate owned mass media, and

the sheer lack of outcry by the people, the
99% whom the movement represent, make
it clear the direction and insight we’ve offered our movement brothers and sisters
has simply not been disseminated and adopted broadly or quickly enough to prevent
the encirclement campaign the 1% and its
tools have employed.
It is the lack of NATIONAL adoption
of an articulable platform, and implementation of a coordinated strategic approach
that allows the ‘USA Today,’ a corporate
media outlet that’s always been anti-occupy movement, to run op-ed’s stating “lacking clear goals and leaders the ‘occupy’
movement fizzles.”
Because of the essential democratic imperative the movement represents to the
most disenfranchised, economically underdeveloped, and politically underrepresented, the movement MUST survive, and to
do so it MUST evolve, organize and build
to win.
We are asking for your help in ensuring
they not only have those tools, but they
ADOPT AND EMPLOY them as their
own. To that end, in the run up to the May
1st general strike, we ask your aid in educating, organizing and mobilizing movement activists and the community at large,
around a competent platform and strategic
approach. Go to the SF Bay View on line
(www.sfbayview.com) and down load our
2 latest movement statements: (1) California Prisoner Hunger Strikers Propose ‘10
Core Demands’ for the National Occupy
Movement.’ (Dec. 6, 2011) and
(2) ‘A Discussion on Strategy for the
National Occupy Movement from Behind
Enemy Lines,’ (Feb. 19, 2012) and disseminate them together as broadly as possible,
to both occupy movement activists and
organizers, AND to those individuals and
organizations who in your judgment would
support ANY of the 10 core demands as
outlined by the N.C.T.T.
We are calling on you, and all in the
movement, to adopt these 10 core demands
as the platform for this NATIONAL Occupy Movement (BOTH Occupy Wall Street
AND Occupy the Hood) and have them the
basis of the May 1st General Strike (i.e.,
“General Strike in Support of the 10 Core
Demands of the National Occupy Movement.”) By doing so, we instantly silence
our critics, give the broader masses articulable goals around which to be educated,
organized and mobilized, while issuing
clear demands to the pawns of the 1% as to
the policies we expect.
5

We encourage you to print out the ‘10
Core Demands’ themselves and spread
them among your friends, neighbors, and
co-workers. We encourage all who read
these words to call in sick on May 1st. If
you can’t, find some other way to support
the general strike. We here of the N.C.T.T.
- COR-SHU will be supporting the general
strike here, as we feel it is only through
sacrifice—even small sacrifices such as
these—that victories are realized, mutual
interests solidified, and unity of purpose is
forged.
It is our sincerest hope we can depend
on your aid and assistance in these coming events. No matter where you are in the
world, you are needed. We hope you hear
the call. Until we win or don’t lose.
For more information on the N.C.T.T. COR - SHU or its work product, contact:
Zaharibu Dorrough D-83611 (4B1L - #53)
J. Heshima Denham J-38283 (4B1L - #46)
Kambui Robinson C-83820 (4B1L - #49)
Jabari Scott H-30536 (4B1L - #63)
CSP - COR - SHU
P.O. Box 3481
Corcoran, CA. 93212

A DISCUSSION
ON STRATEGY
FOR THE OCCUPY
MOVEMENT FROM
BEHIND ENEMY
LINES
[BayView’s editorial note: This comes
from the brilliant minds who brought you
“California prison hunger strikers propose
‘10 core demands’ for the national Occupy
Wall Street Movement,” the Bay View’s
most read story, with 9,980 pageviews,
from Dec. 6, 2011, to Feb. 19, 2012.]
By J. Heshima Denham, Zaharibu Dorrough and Kambui Robinson of the NCTT
Corcoran SHU, February 19, 2012.
“But beneath this conventional enthusiasm and amid this ingratiating
ritual toward the dominant power, you
can easily perceive in the wealthy a
deep distaste for the democratic institutions of their country. The people are
a power they both fear and despise.”
– Alexis De Tocqueville,
“Democracy in America”
6

G

reetings, brothers and sisters. A
firm, warm and solid embrace of
revolutionary love is extended to

you all.
As we proceed in this period of evolution in our struggles for substantive social
change in the U.S. via the national Occupy
Movement, the Prisoner Hunger Strike
Solidarity Movement, the Anti-Imperialist
Movement etc., it is imperative that we not
only understand that we are all representative of a single socio-political and historic
motive force, but those in opposition to our
democratic aspirations are the very same
political, social and economic powers that
this nation has relied on to ensure the integrity of democracy, social justice and economic equality. This is a contradiction.
This historic contradiction will NOT be
resolved via our disparate efforts. Substantive change will only be realized through a
comprehensive strategic approach, coordinated and conducted by us all. Simply put,
we are a single movement, and for us to
have the social impact necessary to compel
progress we must proceed with this realization as out guiding ethos. We of the NCTT
(New Afrikan Collective Think Tank) in
the Corcoran SHU (Security Housing Unit)
have a proposal on effective strategic organizing we’d like to share with you here, but
before we do so we think it is imperative
that you all understand the historic significance of what we are all a part of.
It is our assessment that what is occurring today as it relates to the national protest movement (i.e., Occupy Wall Street,
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity etc.) is
the unfinished legacy of the struggle for
social justice necessary for the U.S. to fulfill its democratic potential. This struggle
is part of the rich and courageous legacy
of abolitionists, women’s rights activists,
organized labor, populists, human and civil
rights activists and other democratic struggles of the nation’s past.
Social revolution has always been imperative to this type of substantive change.
This calls for the recognition and coming
together of people – citizens from different
cultural, economic and ideological backgrounds – realizing the common interest
inherent in this truth: that we all inhabit the
same planet, breathe the same air, are part
of the human family.
The social revolution of the 1960s, once
it was contained by the conservative, corporate counter-culture, was reduced to being characterized as a “sexual revolution”
in the same disparaging terms that the so-

cial revolution we are waging in this nation today is being characterized as a kind
of mindless, leaderless rabble who simply
dislike the wealthy, or “gang members,”
whose only interest is imposing themselves
on the larger population. These intentionally dishonest characterizations are not being made by the average reasoning man or
woman – but instead by those we’ve vested
with the responsibility of governing our political, social or economic institutions.
Was it any surprise that former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain
described Occupy Movement activists as
“stupid” because they opposed the inherent institutional inequality of the capitalist arrangement? Neither were we shocked
that CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton,
when asked about the alleged “suicide”
death of a “jailhouse lawyer” in Pelican
Bay’s ASU (Administrative Segregation
Unit), responded, “Why are you concerned
about that? … Was the inmate someone important? You know, someone well known
like Charles Manson?” This is typical of
the wealthy and their tools.
We began this discussion with a quote
from Alexis De Tocqueville to illustrate
not only the disdain in which the power
structure in this society holds the people’s
democratic expression but the fear and
resentment they hold towards those who
dare challenge this status quo in capitalist Amerika. We represent nothing more
to these overseers and shareholders – and
that’s just what the politicians, policy makers, prison industrialists and corporate executives are – than billions of dollars in
potential profit to be extracted from our
human misery.
For example, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
(CDCR) and its lobbying body, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), has succeeded in extorting
budgets in excess of some nations’ gross
national product by using us as the centerpiece of their distortion and false propaganda campaign of fear and dehumanization.
They’ve duped taxpayers so successfully
for so long at the expense of our very humanity that we had no choice but to take
up a strategy in which the ultimate sacrifice
may yet be necessary.
Following the ending of the last hunger
strike in October, most of us, particularly
those of us in these short corridors here and
in Pelican Bay, were refused any medical
treatment though we lost over 20 pounds in
the 13-day period the second hunger strike
¡Roca!

lasted – and we hadn’t yet recovered from
the first.
Our hunger strikes were the only way
to effectively resist the nonstop assault on
our humanity which is the inevitable consequence of burying us indefinitely in these
sensory deprivation torture units. Equally,
when working wages or employment itself are so shamelessly inconsistent with
the cost of living, resulting in conditions
of poverty, there is a corresponding poverty of spirit. The success of the Occupy
Movement, like the hunger strikes, requires
sacrifice and strategic insight. The kind of
sacrifices being exemplified by courageous
nationalists and activists like you – we love
it, we love you and we stand with you.
Seizing the reins of history
What we all must come to understand
is our struggle – like the vision of a new
social structure inherent in this movement
– must adopt new methods of ensuring its
survival and expansion. The shear absurdity of some of the political pandering and
positions in this election season, from Newt
“Gingrinch’s” espousal of the merits of
exploiting child labor in the underclass to
discussions of cutting unemployment benefits by Tea Party Republicans in the face
of record unemployment and cash-fat corporations refusing to hire, highlights how
out of touch these puppets of the 1 percent
ruling elite are with the daily challenges of
the common man or woman.
Simultaneously, we are being asked to
trust these same people who are responsible
for creating conditions for, and exploitation
of, human misery. We have been doing so
for centuries and it has only moved us from
one socio-economic crisis to the next.
Only when the people, the 99 percent,
seized the reigns of history has the democratic destiny of humanity and its most
noble ideas – unity, equality, self-determination, cooperation, freedom, justice
and human rights – been advanced to any
appreciable degree. Each progressive step
forward – from the Suffrage Movement,
which seized a woman’s right to vote from
an entrenched chauvinistic privilege, to
the nonviolent protests of the Civil Rights
Movement that repealed segregation, to
the empowerment and self-defense tactics
of the national liberation movements that
followed – was punctuated by a coherent
strategic approach whose relative success
or failure has been equal to the resonance
it found in the nation’s mass psychology.
No one with a modicum of intelligence
Vol. 1 Number 3

would disagree with the validity of our
message, the righteousness of the Occupy
Movement’s 10 core demands or the correctness of our aspirations. Yet this is not
enough to sustain a movement so vocally
opposed to the entrenched power structure
of the 1 percent and all the tools of repression at their disposal.
No, what will be needed is nothing short
of the unified might of the 99 percent, most
if not all of us speaking with one voice,
with one will, animated by this same spirit
throughout. We cannot expect paths to social change to be laid by the forces of oppression, which means we must pursue
self-determination and self-sufficiency,
demonstrating the validity of our vision
of society through social practice. We possess all the tools necessary to transform our
occupations into practice programs which
address some of the core inequities in the
capitalist arrangement we currently stand
in opposition to by imbedding them in the
most underdeveloped and disenfranchised
communities of the 99 percent, where the
effects of corporate greed and institutional
inequality are most visible.
There is another common thread running
through the Occupy Movement, Hunger
Strike Solidarity Movement and Anti-Imperialist Movement: Most of us engaged
in these movements either champion, hail
from or have been forced into the underclass of the U.S. socio-economic strata. I
want you all to ask yourselves, after a cursory examination of U.S. society, who has
done most of the work, most of the dying,
most of the time in prison or on the unemployment line? Who has little or no interest in the maintenance of the current status
quo, who has been disproportionately affected by the sub-prime loan fiasco and the
socio-economic impact of corporate greed
and political corruption?
Invariably we must answer it is the underclass communities of this nation, Amerika’s ghettos, hoods, barrios, trailer parks
and projects. Their unfortunate position
in the capitalist arrangement and desperate historical relationship to the productive
system forces this segment of society to the
forefront of any revolutionary scheme.
When the honorable Comrade George
Lester Jackson expressed this same analysis some 40 years ago, people did not fully
grasp what he meant. Yet here we are still
pursuing the victorious conclusion of the
same democratic process.
Three pilot programs

What we propose is harnessing the full
spectrum potential of the Occupy Movement at every level and lining it with the
untapped power and potential of the millions and millions in underclass communities across Amerika via three pilot programs
which are complimentary, self-sustaining
and socio-economically empowering for
all of the 99 percent, while proving definitively that the spirit of cooperation is more
socially fulfilling and impactful than the
greed and avarice promoted through capitalist competition.
We propose organizing major segments
of the movement and those they serve to
not only safeguard the survival and forward progress of the cause itself, but open
an entirely new front for the struggle. The
Occupy Wall Street Movement, Occupy
the Hood and the underclass communities,
each working in coordination, could prove
an unstoppable force if organized and mobilized with unity of purpose. Each segment of this broader organizing force possesses mutually beneficial qualities whose
socio-economic and political impact far
exceeds the sum of its individual parts.
We of the NCTT Corcoran SHU urge
you to distribute this strategic proposal to
all the various Occupy Movement groups
nationally, all the various chapters of Occupy the Hood, especially its founder, Malik
Rhasaan, and that together they bring this
proposal to the underclass communities
across Amerika. We want to urge all our
brothers and sisters in lumpen organizations within these communities, no matter
what set you claim, nation you ride, Sureño
or Norteño, hood you represent or crew
you roll with, to support and defend these
brothers and sisters from all aspects of the
Occupy Movement as they enter your/our
communities, many living in and being
from those same or similar communities,
to build with us a new dynamic that will
enrich us all.
Equally we want to urge all our brothers and sisters in the Occupy Movement
to learn from the people as you enter and
work with the underclass community so we
all may better serve the interests of the 99
percent. For some of you, it will be a new
and sobering reality, completely outside
of your experience, and should provide an
uncensored view of the human misery and
socio-economic inequality in Amerika. It is
imperative that you all look upon the interests of the movement and those communities as your very own; the survival of the
movement and hope for substantive change
7

in the daily dynamic of economic desperation and despair in the underclass communities of the U.S. may well depend on it.
The three pilot programs we are proposing are NCTT word-product, either drawn
from our archives or uniquely developed to
ensure the success of this enterprise. This
venture will require some structural organization amongst you. We suggest you adopt
a democratic centralist organizational structure which will allow everyone to air their
views, opinions and suggestions – be they
popular or unpopular, correct or incorrect
– in group discussions on policy decisions.
Yet those with the greatest knowledge and
insight on the specific subject matter being
disclosed should have the greatest influence on the policy ultimately adopted.
Such an approach will encourage the
broadest possible participation in the decision making process, while securing the
most viable and sagacious ideas and preventing the cropping up of ultra-democratic ideas, where someone has something to
say on every little thing and nothing ever
gets accomplished, just bourgeois aversion
to the collective will.
These programs are intentionally designed to be universally adaptive, modifiable and amendable to work in any community. The success of some aspects of
these programs will be benefited by specialized knowledge, insight or skill sets.
We are aware that the Occupy Movement
in its various permutations, as well as the
underclass communities in which these
programs will be imbedded, possess intellectuals, professionals and technicians
whose knowledge and participation will
prove essential, and we urge you all to
begin taking stock of these skill sets and
maintaining – or creating – a local database
of each activist or participant’s skill sets,
such as computer engineering, drywall, agricultural expertise, technical engineering,
plumbing, visual art etc.
To facilitate the success of these collective work initiatives and as we see success,
we expand these efforts into new areas
of development. Our brothers and sisters
already doing vital work in the Occupy
the Hood chapters, such as the “Feed the
Hood” program, we ask you now to expand
your relationship with the Occupy Wall
Street Movement beyond the confines of
the people of color working group and enter a new and broader phase of community
development and social organization which
will see a true union of all of our social
forces in the practical work of building an
8

entirely new basis for relating to the productive system.
Occupy the Hood is the natural bridge
between all aspects of the 99 percent, and it
is only through a functional union such as
this that our movement can be transformed
into a true social revolution and perhaps
more. Those of you who’ve been engaged
in these historic hunger strikes across the
nation in support of the five core demands
and in opposition to the maintenance and
expansion of these sensory deprivation
torture units and the prison industrial complex as a whole – especially those of you
in these short corridors with us here and in
Pelican Bay – if you retain any influence
in your hood, barrio, trailer park or community, we urge you to have those on the
streets from your community, if they don’t
have an Occupy the Hood chapter established, to contact Malik Rhasaan on Twitter
(#Occupy the Hood) and establish one, as
the broader and deeper the movement is out
there, the greater the positive impact will
be on every aspect of this society, including
on our struggle here (see No. 6 of the 10
core demands of the Occupy Movement).
To all you brothers and sisters on college
campuses or in unemployment lines across
this nation, if you don’t have an Occupy
Movement chapter established in your
city, contact the nearest Occupy Movement
chapter to you and establish one of your
own. It is in your interest to alter the fundamental dynamic of human relationships
and the basis for prosperity in this nation,
and what we propose here may well give us
the greatest possible chance to do just that.
The three pilot programs we propose are:
1) the closed circuit economic initiative;
2) the sustainable community agricultural
commons; 3) the block vote democratic initiative. We will explain each here in basic
terms and should you need detailed program formats or other help, you need only
contact us directly. We have done our best
to give you all the necessary information
needed to start here. Please bear with us. I
assure you it’s worth your time.
Closed Circuit Economic Initiative
The Closed Circuit Economic Initiative
(CCE Initiative) is a cooperative economic
venture designed to amplify local wealth by
re-circulating it in the community in which
it originated, while providing collective
ownership of the venture to the community
and movement, while simultaneously addressing local unemployment in the community in which the venture is based. The

CCE Initiative was originally designed to
address the flight of wealth from New African communities to more affluent ones that
actually owned the businesses in New African (Black) neighborhoods.
We discovered that a single dollar will
circulate in the Jewish community for some
35 days, in the Korean community for 28
days, yet a dollar circulates in the New African (Black) community for an average of
70 seconds. Yes, seconds. However, what
we also learned through further analysis
was this was in fact, to a greater or lesser
degree, a universal disparity throughout
underclass communities regardless of their
racial or national makeup.
The wealth of underclass communities
rarely, if ever, went to enriching those same
communities. But there is within our power
a way to change that.
Similar to the electrical charge fulfillment action of a closed circuit capacitor –
where circulating a charge through a catalyst in a closed circuit will ultimately fulfill
a storing device’s capacitance with no need
to increase the voltage yield of the charges
– it is possible to increase the economic
capacity of a community by circulating
its wealth in that community for a longer
period. This capacitance is increased if the
community itself controls the economic
circuit in which current exchanges flow.
Here is how we will accomplish this: The
Occupy Movement will prepare fliers and
pamphlets outlining this initiative in clear,
easy-to-understand terms, specifically
referencing the unique conditions on the
ground in the local underclass communities
you hope to begin in. The larger the community, the more impactful it will prove.
Occupy the Hood activists, organizers
and leaders from the community slated
for the initiative, along with Occupy Wall
Street activists, will canvas the hood together distributing these educational fliers
door to door, to churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, pool halls, the street
corners, the hood spots and homie hangouts, salons, barbershops and wherever our
people congregate, answering questions
and promoting the value of the initiative.
Next a survey flier will have to be produced which asks each individual in that
community the three top goods and services they most frequently spend their
money on – and/or the largest portion of
their money on – and/or the largest portion
of their money every month. This may vary
depending on the community, from groceries to gasoline, from laundrymat services to
¡Roca!

parking. Once these surveys are collected
and their results compiled and we have the
top three goods and services that particular
community spends their money on, we’ll
have the basis for our first economic venture and a business plan to produce based
on the No. 1 pick.
For example, let’s say food and home
supplies is the area where the most money
is spent in Southeast San Diego’s Skyline
community. The first venture in this community’s CCE Initiative would be a grocery
store, which brings us to our next step: a
true community organizing meeting – or
several – will have to be held with the entire community and movement activists
participating to elect economic trustees for
the CCE Fund: one from Occupy the Hood,
one from Occupy Wall Street, and two
from the community in which the venture
is based.
These four will collectively oversee the
CCE Fund for that community, allowing
those funds raised to be accepted only by
those four persons together – no single individual will have access to the fund – and
only for the CCE Initiative venture agreed
to via the democratic will of all involved.
This will ensure checks and balances are
maintained and trust is assured.
To fund the grocery store, we will ask
each individual in that community to contribute $1 or $2 bi-monthly, along with
their names, addresses and phone numbers
to the CCE Initiative for a six-month period. Let’s say there are 10,000-15,000 residents in this community, along with those
local Occupy Movement activists who wish
to contribute. Each individual will receive
a CCE certification card for their contribution, no matter how small.
All these funds will be deposited in
the CCE Fund’s interest earning account,
which would raise an estimated $100,000
in that six-month period. We use the lion’s
share of those funds to purchase or build
our own grocery store in that community,
owned by that community collective who
are on the CCE registry; if you contributed,
you’re on the registry.
We will then hire only people from
that community or from the local Occupy
Movement who are unemployed. Those
Occupy Wall Street activists with accounting, business, tax, zoning, law, real estate,
grocery or other related expertise should
provide that expertise to ensure the success
of these ventures and receive a CCE certificate for their contributions to the effort’s
creation and continued success.
Vol. 1 Number 3

Once established, we need not worry
about patronage or marketing because
those who own the venture – the community itself – will, of course, shop in their own
grocery store and encourage others to also
before going elsewhere. All the profits, minus overhead, will go back to the CCE Fund
with 60 percent being paid out monthly to
all CCE Initiative registrants – those with
a CCE certificate of contribution – in the
form of a dividend check, the other 40 percent gaining interest in the CCE fund.
We will keep contributing and collecting
the $1-$2 every two weeks, depositing it in
the CCE Fund. Also, in the next six months,
we purchase a “sympathetic-support venture,” one that depends on or contributes
directly to the initial venture; let’s say a
bakery. The grocery store will purchase its
baked goods inventory exclusively from
the CCE Initiative bakery. Again, the bakery will hire only people from that community or local movement without a job.
Again, we repeat the process. In the next
six-month period we purchase a second
sympathetic-support venture; let’s say an
organic grain and produce farm, again hiring only those from the community and local movement who are unemployed. Grain,
flour and product inventories for the bakery
and grocery store will be purchased from
our farm – all of these ventures buying and
selling to one another while servicing the
broader community which owns them.
Again we repeat the process in six
months, this time acquiring a small cannery
and packaging factory to begin offering our
own canned foods and packed goods from
both our farm and bakery to our grocer –
and on to the broader market. Again, we
hire only from that community and local
movement’s unemployed.
As this proceeds with each expansion
of the CCE Initiative venture, the local
unemployment rate drops, the amount of
dividend checks paid out to CCE Initiative
registrants rises, until eventually that community reaches 100 percent employment,
with a second revenue stream directly
linked to their own consumer choices. As
the prosperity of our collectively-owned
businesses grows, we will inevitably reach
complete community economic interconnection and social empowerment for the
people and the movement.
The CCE Initiative dividend checks may
begin as small as $.30 or $.40, yet in 18
months could be $30-$40. The CCE Fund
can then turn its attention to establishing a
local credit commons, where the commu-

nity can invest in its own people’s interests,
not to generate profit from usurious interest
rates, but to promote community prosperity
and meet human needs. Here, people from
the community and local movement can get
micro-loans, home and auto financing, and
standard banking services.
In this way, the underclass community becomes entirely independent of the
standard competitive capitalist economy
through simple unity, cooperative economics and collective work, distribution of
wealth and ownership. All dividend adjustments will be distributed equally amongst
everyone in the CCE Initiative, regardless
if you contributed $1 or $2 or your specialized knowledge and insight. So long as you
contribute to the CCE Initiative, you’ll receive an equal share of dividends.
Once a full community economic circuit
is closed, it can be joined to others in the
region or nationally, providing a socio-economic alternative to the yoke of wage slavery offered us all by the 1 percent ruling
elite. We need only touch the corporate capitalist economy where our own innovation
and enterprises fail to meet the capacity or
are simply unable to. But we here of the
NCTT are always thinking and, in truth, the
only limitation to the CCE Initiative meeting the material needs of the 99 percent is
your own imagination; we assure you there
are further options.
By means of the CCE Initiative, we can
clearly demonstrate cooperation serves the
interests of the 99 percent where competition has clearly been unequal to the task.
By those means we establish a true transfer culture from which substantive change
in the nature and structure of U.S. society
can be realized. This CCE Initiative corresponds to Nos. 1, 2, 9 and 10 of the 10 core
demands of the national Occupy Movement.
The Sustainable Community Agricultural Commune
Chronic poverty and underemployment
– the legacy of corporate greed and political corruption in Amerika – can be directly
linked to chronic disease, high obesity rates
and the plethora of health problems that
accompany them. These types of physical
debilities impact underclass communities
disproportionately due primarily to anemic
access to quality produce, meats, grains and
vegetables in our communities.
Of equal concern is the ecological impact
of multinational corporate agri-concerns,
from the exploitation of Third World broth9

ers and sisters – some 90 percent of the
produce consumed in the U.S. is grown
in the Third World, while the majority of
the rest comes from large corporate farms
– to the adverse environmental impact of
greenhouse gas emissions from shipping
food thousands of miles to reach our tables.
Yet it is within our power to change this
dynamic by embracing sustainable urban
farming as a viable alternative.
Throughout the underclass communities
of Amerika, especially in the wake of record foreclosures and the intentional gentrification of our communities, there are
vacant lots, open plots and tracts of aimless
dirt that we can reclaim and transform into
urban gardens that will not only feed the
communities healthy and nutritious food,
but also provide a valuable and significant
source of revenue for them.
Consider that less than 2 percent of the
food consumed in metropolitan areas in the
U.S. is grown there. Yet urban areas consume billions of dollars worth of food each
year, including junk food, sodas, fast food,
condiments and processed snacks that, unfortunately, are staples of many poor folks’
diets because the stuff is cheap and filling.
But if our food was locally produced, it
would not only be healthier and 50 percent
cheaper than if you bought it at your supermarket, but also serve as a source of revenue for the community by selling the surplus to local chefs, restaurants and our own
farmers markets, while relying on organic
and other agricultural advances to increase
both quality and yields.
I’d like to illustrate what we propose
more clearly using Cleveland, Ohio, as
an example. According to Entrepreneur
Magazine (October 2011), by increasing
local urban farming by 5 percent in greater
Cleveland it would translate into $750 million more in revenue for local purveyors.
When was the last time a $750 million
business was relocated to your community,
let alone the hood, barrio or trailer park?
Cleveland based business development
analyst Michael Shuman did a study on
what would happen if northeast Ohio managed to provide 25 percent more of the
food it consumed. This report revealed that
such a move would create over 27,000 new
jobs, increase annual regional output by
$4.2 billion and grow tax revenue by more
than $125 million.
In 2007, Cleveland became the first city
in the U.S. to zone for community gardens.
It now subsidizes farms in the city’s core
and the 6-acre farm plot that opened re10

cently in the heart of the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland, only a few blocks
from the Riverview Towers projects, not
only services surrounding restaurants, but
our brothers and sisters from the Riverview
projects can buy fresh produce just outside
their building, closer than the Safeway,
Kroger or fast food joint, and 50 percent
cheaper than its regular price. Now imagine if that 6-acre farm was collectively
owned and operated by the residents of the
Riverview Towers projects. That’s exactly
what we are proposing here.
We call on our Occupy Movement brothers and sisters – both Occupy Wall Street
and Occupy the Hood – to link with local
underclass community organizers and pool
their assets, expertise and labor to educate,
organize and mobilize the community’s
residents for the sustainable community
agricultural commune (SCA commune).
Our first step will be in canvassing the
community, distributing fliers to everyone,
about our intention of building the SCA
commune with that community, then going
through the meticulous process of cataloging each square yard of land, no matter how
large or small the plot – who owns it, and
what it will take to get it zoned and secured
for community use.
Simultaneously, another survey of that
community and the local businesses which
use produce and poultry must be conducted
to determine which fruits, vegetables, herbs
and grains are most widely consumed, popular and commercially valued in that community and area. Once done this must be
compared to which crops among those will
grow most effectively and profusely in that
unique climate and environment.
In so doing we must also consider new
agricultural innovations such as vertical urban gardening, poultry cultivation through
modern chicken coops such as those offered by “chicken cribs” (go to Backyardchickens.com) and free range techniques.
The diversity of industry and innovative
insight based in the Occupy Movement
will prove particularly valuable as we seek
contacts and assistance from conscious
industry proponents, such as Jac Smit of
the Urban Agriculture Network, Michael
Shuman, author of “Community Food Enterprise,” who is currently a consultant at
Cutting Edge Capital in Oakland, California, or Dickson Despommier of the Vertical
Farm Project and those amongst movement
activists with the same expertise, insight or
skill set.
Equally essential at this stage will be our

brothers and sisters of Occupy the Hood in
organizing movement activists, community
organizers and residents into the divisions
of labor necessary to initiate the commune.
Following the collective ownership format,
we go to the people soliciting contributions of $.50-$1 from community residents
and movement activists over a 90-day to
six-month period, while securing volunteers from across the community and local
movement to work the farms on a rotating
basis. If one cannot contribute money, they
can contribute their labor or both if they
like.
Everyone who contributes something to
that cycle will be given a commune membership card entitling them to 50 percent
in produce and 50 percent in dividends.
Therefore 50 percent of the seasonal yield
will be set aside to feed the commune and
50 percent will be put on the market for
sale. All produce sold to residents of that
community will be discounted at our farmers’ markets, while chefs, restaurants and
other businesses interested in our locally
grown produce will receive it at the going
rate.
Sixty percent of all profits (minus overhead) from the SCA commune fund will
be divided amongst commune members
equally as dividends, while 40 percent will
continue to incur interest in the fund as the
$.50-$1 that community residents and local
activists continue to contribute to the fund
to expand our farms and branch out into
poultry production and other husbandry.
This will provide quality, organic and free
range meats for our commune and potential
customers in the same percentages and allotments previously discussed.
We encourage the movement to reach
out to conscious businesses like Greenaid,
a L.A.-based guerilla gardening company
that makes clay, compost and seed balls
that can be tossed in derelict urban areas
to make them green spaces, and Urbio, a
San Francisco-based company that makes
planters for vertical urban gardening, for
donations to this effort of equipment and
material. As the commune grows, the SCA
fund can turn its attention to funding other
sympathetic ventures, such as a mobile
slaughterhouse and produce distribution
trucks, all employing only people from
the communes or that community’s local
movement who are unemployed, broadening the scope of our farms and their positive impact on the underclass communities
in which they are based.
The SCA commune will serve to liter¡Roca!

ally root the movement in the community
while effecting positive change in the daily
lives of the people. By providing these
communities with healthy and nutritious
food, creating a vital source of collective
wealth, reclaiming and breathing life into
what would be eyesores or an impetus for
fascist tools of the ruling 1 percent – police,
sheriffs etc. – to harass poor people in their
own communities, we improve the quality
of life for those of us most adversely affected by the current social order.
Our urban farms will provide a safe place
of peace and prosperity for our people, out
children and our youth to fellowship as
they build a brighter future for themselves,
their communities and this world, all from
the power of their hands, heads and hearts.
In addition we open an entirely new industry with limitless economic potential in
the center of the underclass communities
of Amerika, and it’s owned, operated and
patronized by those who are its residents,
the 99 percent. This program corresponds
to No. 2 of the 10 core demands of the national Occupy Movement.
The Block-Vote Democratic
Initiative
In our last communique we definitively
established that the ruling 1 percent had
successfully hijacked the political process
in Amerika. If any of you have been watching the partisan insanity playing out in
Congress, the tripe being spouted by mental midgets like Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump, the ultra-right wing pandering
of Mitt Romney or the fence straddling timidity and status-quo maintenance of the
Obama administration, you should have no
doubt we speak the unvarnished truth.
We have also articulated the fact that the
reason so few people vote in underclass
communities is the socio-economic and
race-based disparities that are responsible
for the human misery in these communities
are institutional and systemic to U.S. capitalist economics. No matter who they vote
into office, their plight does not change.
The problem is not the democratic process,
which is as yet unfinished in Amerika. No,
the flaw lies in the legalized corruption of
politicians at the local, state and national
level.
Similar to the conflict between federalists and republicans during the inception
of the U.S. two-party system in the 1700s,
once the people elect these pawns of the
1 percent, they feel the people should just
sit down and shut up, while their ears turn
Vol. 1 Number 3

only to the voices of lobbyists, special interests, and those who can improve their
political careers and coffers. But it need
not be this way if the incalculable power of
the democratic will of the underclass can
be awakened.
Before the sleeping giant of underclass
democratic power – the poor man and
woman’s vote – can be strategically harnessed, there must be some assurance that
their interests will be realized. This effort
will provide that interest for all the 99 percent.
What we propose in the Block-Vote
Democratic Initiative (BVD Initiative) is to
do just that by bypassing these corrupt politicians altogether by putting the policies
we, the 99 percent, support on the ballots of
local, state and national elections via petition with a simultaneous voter registration
“block” comprised of Occupy Movement
activists and entire underclass communities, so the shear number of affirmative
votes passes the policy measures outright.
What we propose is to have Occupy
Movement activists – both Occupy the
Hood and Occupy Wall Street – prepare
informative pamphlets specifically targeted
to their local underclass communities and
districts containing our 10 core demands
and issues of particular interest to that
community which the vast majority of the
people support. Once we’ve assessed the
will of the people, ballot measures and signature petitions should be prepared based
directly on those policies most widely supported, with voter registrations drives to
register everyone in the community and
movement who supports the policy. Each
local policy initiative or position on a bill
should be organized as a block capable of
passing – or defeating – the initiative outright.
On the state level, greater coordination
between underclass communities will have
to be organized through Occupy Movement
activists, and again if possible our “block”
should be so overwhelming as to pass the
initiative outright. On the national level
that will prove even more difficult as the
concurrence on the specific policy will lose
resonance in direct proportion to the site of
the population we seek to serve.
Nevertheless, we should still seek to pass
these measures outright. To facilitate this,
each measure’s vote should be preceded by
at least two weeks of demonstrations corresponding in size to the measure’s social
impact – i.e., local measures warrant local
demonstrations, state measures should war-

rant a statewide wave of demonstrations,
and national measures should see demonstrations from coast to coast. This will raise
awareness and galvanize support in other
segments of the social strata ensuring the
measures pass.
There are three possible measures reflective of our 10 core demands we are fairly
certain would find overwhelming support
in underclass communities across Amerika:
1) A total ban on all corporate and financial influences, including lobbyists and
“strategic analysts,” from any aspect of the
electoral process. Only individuals should
be able to influence the polls with their
votes and campaign contributions – see No.
7 of the 10 core demands of the national
Occupy Movement.
2) Establishment of community based
parole boards, with a panel from the community where the offender actually lived
and would return, determining when an indeterminate term – such as 25 to life, three
strikes etc. – has been sufficiently satisfied
and he or she is ready to return home. This
contrasts with the current panel of DAs,
police and other law enforcement officials
that make up parole boards today. Most
prisoners hail from underclass communities and it is these communities who should
decide when they are sufficiently rehabilitated to return. This corresponds to No. 6
of the 10 core demands of the national Occupy Movement.
3) Establish universal health care for
the poor. All individuals making under
$25,000 a year and families making under
$50,000 a year should be provided access
to a comprehensive universal health care
system. This corresponds to No. 2 of the
10 core demands of the national Occupy
Movement.
Such measures would pass overwhelmingly in the underclass communities of
Amerika, serve to empower those most
disenfranchised segments of society, and
improve the quality of life for over 100
million people in the U.S., all because we,
the 99 percent, via the BVD Initiative, removed corrupt politicians from the policy
creation and implementation process. Any
force opposing this undiluted expression of
the will of the people would be by definition undemocratic.
It is our sincerest hope that you all see
the merits of what we propose here and act
in accordance with it. In any conflict resolution scenario, the first step that should be
made is a strategic analysis of yourself and
those forces aligned against you to ascer11

tain your relative strengths and weaknesses. The wise know such assessments, especially in socio-political conflicts, must be
constantly studied and reassessed because
they are in a state of constant change.
If this is done correctly, we can calculate
the prospects of victory or defeat. Conflict
resolution and warfare are based on identical principles. Sun-Tzu, in his sage masterwork, “The Art of War,” stated, “If you
know your enemy and you know yourself,
you need not fear the outcome of 100 battles.”
If we analyze the actions and reactions of
the tools of the ruling 1 percent, it’s clear
they are pursuing a course of encirclement,
isolation and marginalization against the
national movement, hoping that their control of the mass media and a lack of broadbased organization in the movement will
allow them the opportunity to erode support for it over time, isolate it from positive
public opinion and ultimately destroy it. It
is a posture and strategic approach that has
worked for them in the past. This is possible only if we allow it.
The most prudent way to counter such an
attempt is to place the movement in a position of invincibility, while simultaneously
redefining the nature of the conflict itself.
The movement is strong – we’ve shown
that on every front, be it on the streets or
behind these walls – yet it’s largely unanchored to the material interests of those we
represent. A seed in the ground is easily uprooted, a tree with deep roots, however, is a
monumental task to remove.
Zhuge Liang, a famous general from ancient China’s “warring states era” (180-234
A.D.), in the chapter, “Discerning Bases,”
in his essay, “The Way of the General,”
said: “If you attack evils based on social
trends, no one can rival you in dignity. If
you settle victory based on the power of
the people, no one can rival you in achievement. If you can accurately discern those
bases of action and add dignity and faith to
them, you can take on the most formidable
opponent and prevail over the most valiant
adversary.” Truly basing the movement in
the people ensures no force on earth can
prevail against it. It truly becomes invincible.
Conclusion:
You can transform the world
For all of you reading these words, we
want you to really understand what you are
involved in and what’s at stake. You are on
the cusp of making history, of quite literally
12

changing the world. Right now you have it
within your hands to transform the nature
and structure of the most powerful nation
on earth, and thus transform the world.
You represent the ongoing struggle for
democratic change in the U.S. A historical
legacy reaching back hundreds of years is
now in your hands. The means for victory
are at our collective fingertips; you need
only reach out and seize this opportunity.
Will it be easy? Of course not. Nothing of
value comes without cost or sacrifice. Power concedes nothing without demand.
But what must be understood is that we,
the people, the 99 percent, are the most
powerful force in this world and our cause
is just. Proceeding from this truth with strategic intent we cannot lose. We are on the
right side of history. Our ideas are moral;
our cause is just.
But understand we cannot assume this
is self-evident, nor that it will be enough
to win. We must promote and demonstrate
the correctness of our view through social
practice. Understand we will not win this
conflict without public and political support, but people who may agree with us
will still not join the movement unless it’s
clear our cause is righteous and just.
Yes, the corporate-political power structure is authoritarian, hypocritical and avaricious. Greed and corruption define the very
fabric of U.S. institutions and power considerations. You are expressing the frustration and hostility the people already feel.
But still this is not enough. There must be
a qualitative transformation in that moral
outrage.
If we view morality from a historical
perspective, it has evolved over time into
a system of ethics societies use to create
values that serve the public good. If these
values cease to fit the vast majority of the
people’s interests, the morality of society
slowly shifts, evolving new values. The
morality of corporate capitalism, where
“Gordon Gekko” clones live, the ethos
“Greed is good” does not fit the vast majority of the people’s interests; it never has.
Yet now, that moral self-realization is inescapable.
Articulating this is not enough, and
leaves us – even occupying the moral high
ground that we do – vulnerable. But demonstrating the righteousness of our cause
and moral integrity of our ideas, while simultaneously imbedding the movement
within the population most adversely affected by the entrenched interests of this
greedy and corrupt elite, our ideas become

an interest, our movement becomes a social revolution and any hope of opposition
to the successful realization of our 10 core
demands becomes academic.
The highest form of strategy is to win
without fighting. When time is not an option, we must rely on an approach just as
good: to win first and fight second. This is
what we are proposing here. If you succeed
in waking the sleeping giant of socio-political and economic potential lying dormant
in the underclass communities of Amerika
in pursuit of this equalitarian democratic
imperative, we will have already won.
Should the 1 percent, or their tools, be fool
enough to oppose the inevitable conclusion
of such a social revolution, they will reap a
fool’s reward.
U.S. Army Col. John Boyd, in his analysis of how to suppress guerrilla insurgencies or popular revolutions, stated the only
effective countermeasure to our strategic
approach: “Undermine the … cause and
destroy their cohesion by demonstrating
integrity and competence of government to
represent and serve the needs of the people
rather than exploit and impoverish them for
the benefit of a greedy elite. (If you cannot realize such a political program, Boyd
noted, you might consider changing sides
now to avoid the rush later.) Take political
initiative to root out and visibly punish corruption. Select new leaders with recognized
competence as well as popular appeal. Ensure that they deliver justice, eliminate major grievances and connect the government
with its grass roots.”
In essence, to defeat us they would have
to capitulate to our 10 core demands without struggle. Well, brothers and sisters,
with the unholy alliance of corporate interests and political patronage that defines
the modern political and economic power
structure in the U.S., we need not fear such
countermeasures anytime soon.
It is our sincerest hope that you all find
some value in our counsel and take up these
ideas as your own. Our love, loyalty and
solidarity to all those who love freedom,
justice and equality and fear only failure.
Until we win or don’t lose.
For more information contact:
Zaharibu Dorrough D-83611 (4B1L - #53)
J. Heshima Denham J-38283 (4B1L - #46)
Kambui Robinson C-83820 (4B1L - #49)
Jabari Scott H-30536 (4B1L - #63)
At:
CSP - COR - SHU
P.O. Box 3481
Corcoran, CA. 93212
¡Roca!

INCARCERATION
NATION
By Fareed Zakaria, Time Magazine
March 25, 2012
ass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our
country today,” writes the New Yorker’s
Adam Gopnik. “Over all, there are now
more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America - more than 6 million than were in the Gulag Archipelago under
Stalin at its height.”
Is this hyperbole? Here are the facts.
The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000
citizens. That’s not just many more than
in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per
100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96,
South Korea has 97, and Britain - with a
rate among the highest - has 153.
This wide gap between the U.S. and
the rest of the world is relatively recent.
In 1980 the U.S.’s prison population was
about 150 per 100,000 adults. It has more
than quadrupled since then. So something
has happened in the past 30 years to push
millions of Americans into prison.
That something, of course, is the war
on drugs. Drug convictions went from 15
inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980 to 148
in 1996, an almost tenfold increase. More
than half of America’s federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions. In
2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were
arrested on drug charges, more than were
arrested on assault or larceny charges. And
4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession.
Bipartisan forces have created the trend
that we see. Conservatives and liberals
love to sound tough on crime, and both
sides agreed in the 1990s to a wide range
of new federal infractions, many of them
carrying mandatory sentences for time in
state or federal prison. And as always in
American politics, there is the money trail.
Many state prisons are now run by private
companies that have powerful lobbyists in
state capitals. These firms can create jobs
in places where steady work is rare; in
many states, they have also helped create a
conveyor belt of cash for prisons from treasuries to outlying counties.
Partly as a result, the money that states
spend on prisons has risen at six times the
rate of spending on higher education in the
past 20 years. In 2011, California spent

M

Vol. 1 Number 3

$9.6 billion on prisons vs. $5.7 billion on
the UC system and state colleges. Since
1980, California has built one college campus and 21 prisons. A college student costs
the state $8,667 per year; a prisoner costs it
$45,006 a year.
The results are gruesome at every level.
We are creating a vast prisoner underclass
in this country at huge expense, increasingly unable to function in normal society, all
in the name of a war we have already lost.
Read the full article at TIME.com

OCCUPY 4 PRISONERS
Notes for March 28, 2012
Discussion
e talked a bit about needing to
clarify who we are as a group,
how best to be in solidarity with
incarcerated people, and how that interacts with the actions we do. Tha said that
this group is not necessarily the best one
to define how to be in solidarity with imprisoned people. There’s a lot of excellent
writing on that, and he can give a long list
of organizations with great ideas.
Jerry and Tha also spoke about the national platform for the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People’s Movement
that was approved this past Nov. 2. It
would be good for us all to familiarize ourselves with that and see how it applies to
what we’re doing.
All of Us or None also has films of community forums they’ve done, one is called
“Locked up, Locked Out,” that can help
with education and direction.
Tha also noted that we need to continue
building capacity, so we’ll have more ease
in pulling off actions…for example, having
robust subcommittees happening.
We need to always remember that we’re
connected to Occupy movement, and how
to work with those connections
Ideas
• Having a general list-serv we can add
people to and using it for sharing info
and publicizing events
• Conference or 1-day forum for Bay Area
prison activist groups…this summer?
• As part of the solidarity action for the
day, put money in people’s commissary
accounts in the jails. Point people: Kevin and Rachel
• Add O4P meetings to Occupy Oakland
calendar
Action Decisions
• Flyering at the Oakland jail in morning

W

of April 24th
• Add money to incarcerated folks commissary accounts at that time?
• Gather at [location omitted by editor]
and give a shout-out (stay as long as we
can without getting arrested) then go to
[location omitted by editor] to stage a
mock trial, i.e. “Putting the system on
trial”
• Mock trial will basically be a speak-out
with courtroom trappings, including the
Scales of Injustice. System reps can be
in suits; prosecutors and judge in CDC
jumpsuits?
• Action proposal will go to Occupy Oakland GA on Sun. April 8
Subcommittees For April 24th Action
PROGRAM—Point Person: Denise
This involves putting the mock trial together (lining up “witnesses,” coordinating
staging and quick and easy set-building),
and any other educational actions we may
do along the way
Please let Denise know as soon as possible if you’re interested in helping with
program!
OUTREACH-- Point Person: Mishka
(Denise and Molly will help)
Outreach Opportunities we know of so
far:
• Occupy San Francisco action, April 1st
• April 6th –Solitary Confinement event in
SF
• April 1st- I Love Capitalism march
Next Meeting: Thursday, April 5, 7 pm,
at 1904 Franklin, 3rd Floor Conference
Rm.
“Let us dream of tomorrow where we
can truly love from the soul, and know
love as the ultimate truth at the heart of all
creation.”
-Michael Jackson

13

LEADING MENTAL HEALTH EXPERTS URGE ILLINOIS
LEGISLATORS TO CLOSE TAMMS SUPERMAX
By James Ridgeway and Jean Casella
hen it comes to the psychological effects of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, there are
three acknowledged experts: Drs. Stuart
Grassian, Craig Haney, and Terry Kupers.
The three have collaborated on a joint statement on the closure of Tamms supermax
prison, which was proposed last month by
Illinois governor Pat Quinn. The statement
is directed at the relevant committee of the
Illinois state legislature, which will hold
hearings on the prison closure next week.
We are publishing this important statement
in full.
Comments by Dr. Stuart Grassian, Dr.
Craig Haney, and Dr. Terry Kupers to
the April 2, 2012 Hearing of the Illinois
Legislature Commission on Government
Forecasting and Accountability regarding
the proposal to close Tamms Correctional
Center
Tamms Correctional Center has been
open for over ten years, and some of its
resident prisoners have been at the facility
since it opened. We have been informed
that the Governor of Illinois has recommended that the Tamms facility be closed.
As three long-time researchers and nationally recognized experts on the psychological effects of solitary confinement, we
write to express our strong support of that
recommendation.
We believe that the Governor’s recommendation is entirely consistent with a
growing national trendaway from the use
of long-term solitary confinement.[1] Of
course, there are compelling economic justifications that partially explain this trend.
Supermax prisons such as Tamms are very
expensive to operate. In addition, however,
there are important mental health concerns
and public safety justifications that support this development. Research has shown
that long-term solitary confinement places
prisoners at grave risk of significant psychological harm.[2] Because this kind of
confinement is not only painful but also
potentially damaging—and, for some prisoners, perhaps irreversibly so—it can be a
cruel and singularly inappropriate form of
punishment. Beyond doing more to debilitate than rehabilitate the prisoners who are
subjected to it, solitary confinement undermines the ability of many of them to suc-

W

14

ceed in the community after their eventual
release from prison.[3] This evidence—that
it appears to increase rather than reduce recidivism—raises public safety concerns.
The structure and operation of supermaximum security units such as Tamms
are conducive to the creation of a punitive
atmosphere and even a “culture of cruelty” that can harden and dispirit prisoners
and correctional officers alike. Aspects of
its negative atmosphere and culture may
spread to and negatively affect prevailing
attitudes and practices in the larger correctional system. Moreover, supermax
prisons such as Tamms do not reliably reduce violence or disciplinary infractions
within the larger prison systems in which
they function; in some instances they appear to make it worse.[4] Nor do they alleviate the problem of prison gangs. The
California Department of Corrections has
aggressively pursued the use of long-term
solitary confinement for more than 20 years
and the state prison system is now plagued
with perhaps the worst gang problem in the
nation.
Our views on these matters are based on
a careful review of the existing literature
on solitary confinement and our own direct
observations and analyses of the effects
of long-term solitary confinement in work
that we have been engaged in for more than
three decades. Each of us has toured and
inspected numerous “supermax”-type penal institutions, interviewed and evaluated
numerous prisoners confined under these
severe conditions, and discussed isolation
practices and procedures with correctional
staff and officials from around the country.
We have sometimes been asked to render
expert opinions in legal cases that were focused on whether being housed in supermax facilities such as Tamms constitutes
“cruel and unusual punishment.” One of
us (Dr. Haney) is an academic psychologist
and two of us (Drs. Grassian & Kupers) are
university-affiliated psychiatrists.
More specifically, Dr. Haney is a social
psychologist and Professor of Psychology. He began his study of prisons as one
of the principal researchers who conducted
the well-known “Stanford Prison Experiment” in the early 1970s, and has studied
the psychology of imprisonment in actual
prisons since then.[5] Dr. Haney’s study of

long-term solitary confinement includes a
systematic analysis of the effects of confinement inside a “state-of-the-art” supermax prison that housed prisoners who had
committed serious disciplinary infractions
or were suspected of prison gang activity.
[6] Haney’s use of a random (and therefore representative) sample of prisoners
in supermax confinement allowed him to
establish prevalence rates (i.e., an estimate
of how widespread the psychological reactions were among the group of persons
confined in supermax). This study found
extraordinarily high rates of symptoms
of psychological trauma. More than four
out of five of those evaluated suffered
from feelings of anxiety and nervousness,
headaches, troubled sleep, and lethargy or
chronic tiredness, and over half complained
of nightmares, heart palpitations, and fear
of impending nervous breakdowns. Equally high numbers reported specific psychopathological effects of social isolation
obsessive ruminations, confused thought
processes, an oversensitivity to stimuli,
irrational anger, and social withdrawal.
Well over half reported violent fantasies,
emotional flatness, mood swings, chronic
depression, and feelings of overall deterioration, while nearly half suffered from hallucinations and perceptual distortions, and
a quarter experienced suicidal ideation.
Dr. Grassian did pioneering work on the
harmful psychological effects of solitary
confinement and is responsible for drawing
heightened attention to its harmful consequences in the early 1980s. In his initial article on the topic, Dr. Grassian reported on
15 prisoners kept in isolation for varying
amounts of time at a Massachusetts prison.
[7] Dr. Grassian described a particular psychiatric syndrome resulting from the deprivation of social, perceptual, and occupational stimulation in solitary confinement.
This syndrome has basically the features of
a delirium, and among the more vulnerable
population, can result in an acute agitated
psychosis, and random violence – often directed towards the self, and at times resulting in suicide. He has also demonstrated in
numerous cases that the prisoners who end
up in solitary confinement are generally not,
as claimed, “the worst of the worse”; they
are, instead, the sickest, most emotionally
labile, impulse-ridden and psychiatrically
¡Roca!

vulnerable among the prison population.
Two-thirds of the prisoners Dr. Grassian
initially studied had become hypersensitive
to external stimuli (noises, smells, etc.) and
about the same number experienced “massive free floating anxiety.” About half of
the prisoners suffered from perceptual disturbances that for some included hallucinations and perceptual illusions, and another
half complained of cognitive difficulties
such as confusional states, difficulty concentrating, and memory lapses. About a
third also described thought disturbances
such as paranoia, aggressive fantasies, and
impulse control problems. Three out of
the fifteen had cut themselves in suicide
attempts while in isolation. In almost all
instances the prisoners had not previously
experienced any of these psychiatric reactions.
Dr. Terry Kupers has been studying the
plight of mentally ill prisoners for decades.
[8] In part because of the high prevalence
of serious mental illness he discovered in
many of the supermax facilities that he
toured, he has written extensively about the
harm that long-term isolated confinement
causes in prisoners, especially those suffering from serious psychiatric conditions. As
one stunning index of the magnitude of this
harm, national data indicate that fully half
of the suicides that occur in a prison system
occur among the 4% to 8% of the prisoners
who are consigned to segregation or isolation. Recently, he served as an expert witness, and then as a court-approved monitor,
in litigation in Mississippi that required the
Department of Corrections (Mississippi
DOC) to ameliorate substandard conditions
at the super-maximum Unit 32 of Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, remove prisoners with serious mental illness
(SMI) from administrative segregation and
provide them with adequate treatment,
and re-examine the entire classification
system. Pursuant to two federal consent
decrees, the MDOC greatly reduced the
population in administrative segregation
and established a step-down mental health
treatment unit for the prisoners excluded
from administrative segregation. After
800 of the approximately 1,000 prisoners
in the super-maximum security unit were
transferred out of isolated confinement,
there was a large reduction in the rates of
misconduct and violence, not only among
the prisoners transferred out of supermax,
but in the entire Mississippi Department of
Corrections.[9]
Supermax prisons and the long-term
Vol. 1 Number 3

solitary confinement to which they are
dedicated represent an unjustified return to
a long-discredited 19th century penal practice, one seized upon at a time of dangerous and unprecedented overcrowding that
overwhelmed correctional systems across
the country in the 1980s and 1990s. Rather
than a “best practices” approach to the impending crisis that overcrowding threatened
to bring about, correctional administrators
turned to supermax isolated confinement
because they perceived themselves to have
few alternatives. However, in addition
to the substantial psychological risks that
they create for prisoners, the promise of
supermax—as a last ditch, “stop gap” measure designed to contain the “worst of the
worst”—has always exceeded their actual
accomplishments.
Thus, as we have noted, long-term solitary confinement places prisoners at grave
risk of psychological harm without reliably
producing any tangible benefits in return.
There is no hard evidence that supermaximum security facilities actually ever reliably reduced system-wide prison violence
or enhanced public safety. Fears that a significant reduction in the supermax population or the outright closure of a facility will
result in heightened security threats and
prison violence have not been born out by
experience. In fact, as the example cited
above makes clear, recent experience in
Mississippi found exactly the opposite—
that a drastic reduction in the supermax
population was followed by a reduction in
prison misconduct and violence.
As prison populations slowly decline,
and the nation’s correctional system rededicates itself to program-oriented approaches to positive prisoner change, the
resources expended on long-term solitary
confinement should be redirected to more
cost-effective solutions. In Mississippi and
elsewhere, supermax prisons are beginning
to be seen as an expensive anachronism.
We agree with the Governor that it is an
anachronism that Illinois should do without.
Thank you for considering our comments.
[Stuart Grassian, M.D., Clinical Faculty, Harvard Medical School, 1974 through
2002, Craig Haney, Ph.D., J.D., Professor of
Psychology, University of California, Santa
Cruz, Terry A. Kupers, M.D., M.S.P., InsƟtute Professor, The Wright InsƟtute]
[1] Erica Goode, Prisons Rethink Isola-

tion, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity, New
York Times, March 10, 2012 [available
at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/
us/rethinking-solitary-confinement.
html?pagewanted=all]
[2] Haney, C., and Lynch, M., Regulating Prisons of the Future: A Psychological
Analysis of Supermax and Solitary Confinement, 23 New York University Review of Law and Social Change477-570
(1997); Haney, C., Mental Health Issues in
Long-Term Solitary and “Supermax” Confinement, 49 Crime & Delinquency 124
(2003); Cloyes, K., Lovell, D., Allen, D.,
& Rhodes, L., Assessment of Psychosocial
Impairment in a Supermaximum Security
Unit Sample, 33 Criminal Justice and Behavior 760-781 (2006).
[3] For example, see: Lovell, D., Johnson, L., & Cain, K., Recidivism of Supermax Prisoners in Washington State, 53
Crime & Delinquency 633-656 (2007);
Mears, D., & Bales, W., Supermax Incarceration and Recidivism, 47 Criminology
1131 (2009).
[4] Briggs, C., Sundt, J., & Castellano,
T., The Effect of Supermaximum Security
Prisons on Aggregate Levels of Institutional Violence, 41 Criminology 1341-1376
(2003).
[5] See, for example: Haney, C., Banks,
C., and Zimbardo, P., Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69-97
(1973); and Haney, C., Reforming Punishment: Psychological Limits to the Pains of
Imprisonment. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association Books (2006).
[6] Described in detail in Haney, Mental
Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and
“Supermax” Confinement, supra note 2.
[7] Stuart Grassian, Psychopathological Effects of Solitary Confinement, 140
American Journal of Psychiatry 14501454 (1983). See also, Stuart Grassian and
Friedman, N., Effects of Sensory Deprivation in Psychiatric Seclusion and Solitary
Confinement, 8 International Journal of
Law and Psychiatry 49-65 (1986).
[8] For example, see: T. Kupers, Prison
Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind
Bars and What We Must Do About It. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass (1999).
[9] See T. Kupers, T. Dronet et al, Beyond Supermax Administrative Segregation: Mississippi’s Experience Rethinking
Prison Classification and Creating Alternative Mental Health Programs, 36Criminal
Justice and Behavior 1037-1050, October,
2009.
15

PALESTINIAN CONS FIGHT ISRAELI
ATROCITIES WITH ‘EMPTY STOMACHS’
OCCUPIED RAMALLAH
nspired by Palestinian prisoner Khader
Adnan, who pressured Israel with a 66day hunger strike, a growing number of
his fellow detainees are launching similar
protests.
The tactic appears to be spreading among
the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, who see themselves battling
for their rights with the only weapon they
have: ‘empty stomachs’.
Adnan went for more than two months
without food before a military court agreed
to free him, on April 17, when his fourmonth administrative detention order ends.
Inspired by his example, 30-year-old Hanaa Shalabi began a hunger strike after her
detention in February, reaching her 39th
day without food on Sunday.
An Israeli military court rejected her appeal, her lawyer said.
Hanaa Shalabi was appealing a fourmonth administrative detention order allowing her to be held without charge.
“The Israeli military court rejected the
appeal and now we will go to the High
Court,” Jawad Bulus said. “Hanaa will continue her hunger strike.”
Across the Israeli prison system, around
30 Palestinian prisoners have followed
suit, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’
Club, which tracks Palestinian detainees in
Israeli jails.
The Israeli prison service puts the number at around 20, a spokeswoman said.
“Consultations are underway at all the
occupation’s prisons, and while a hunger
strike is always individual, there will be
a large hunger strike in different Israeli
prisons in the next two months,” Qaddura
Fares, president of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, said.
“The prisoners in the occupation’s prisoner are using the weapon of ‘empty stomachs’ as a result of increased repression
and in the absence of a channel of dialogue
with the Israeli side or negotiations with
the Palestinian Authority to improve their
conditions,” he said.
Those involved, according to the PPC’s
media director Amani Sarahna, are drawing
inspiration from the hunger strike protests
launched by Irish prisoners in the 1980s, in
which 10 people died, including IRA militant Bobby Sands.
“All the messages we have received

I

16

from prisoners in Israeli jails say that they
are following the example of the Irish hunger strikes,” Sarahna said.
While prisoners have cited various reasons for their protests, Fares said the current
wave began in part when improvements expected in the wake of a prisoner exchange
deal last year failed to materialise.
Palestinian prisoners had expected improvements after the exchange, which saw
Gaza fighters release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in return for the freeing of
1,027 Palestinian prisoners.
“The exchange deal and the release of
Shalit didn’t change the conditions of their
detention in the occupation’s prisons. On
the contrary, it got worse,” Fares said.
Shalabi was among the 1,027 prisoners
freed under the deal, after being held for
more than two years without charge, but
she was rearrested on February 16.
She says her hunger strike, which has resulted in her hospitalisation in recent days,
is intended to protest her imprisonment
without charge under a procedure known
as administrative detention.
The procedure allows a military court
to order a detainee to be held for up to six
months at a time without trial or even revealing the evidence against them. The
decision can be appealed and an order can
only be renewed by the court.
More than 4,700 Palestinians are currently detained in Israeli prisons, including
320 held under administrative detention orders, according to the most recent statistics
from the Palestinian prisoners’ ministry.
Agence France-Presse
http://www.omantribune.com/index.php
?page=news&id=115201&heading=Midd
le%20East

DEATH PENALTY
2011
Alarming levels of executions
in the few countries that kill

C

ountries that carried out executions
in 2011 did so at an alarming rate
but those employing capital punishment have decreased by more than a
third compared to a decade ago, Amnesty
International found in its annual review of
death sentences and executions. Only 10

percent of countries in the world, 20 out of
198, carried out executions last year.
People were executed or sentenced to
death for a range of offences including
adultery and sodomy in Iran, blasphemy in
Pakistan, sorcery in Saudi Arabia, the trafficking of human bones in the Republic of
Congo, and drug offences in more than 10
countries.
Nearl 20,000 people remained under
sentence of death at the end of 2011 and at
least 676 people were executed worldwide.
But these figures do not include the thousands of executions that Amnesty International believes were carried out in China,
where the numbers are suppressed.
“The vast majority of countries have
moved away from using the death penalty,”
said Salil Shetty Secretary General of Amnesty International.
“Our message to the leaders of the isolated minority of countries that continue to
execute is clear: you are out of step with the
rest of the world on this issue and it is time
you took steps to end this most cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”
In the Middle East there has been a steep
rise in recorded executions – up almost 50
per cent on the previous year.
Thousands of people were executed in
China in 2011, more than the rest of the
world put together. Figures on the death
penalty are a state secret. Amnesty International has stopped publishing figures it collects from public sources in China as these
are likely to grossly underestimate the true
number.
The organization renewed its challenge
to the Chinese authorities to publish data
on those executed and sentenced to death,
in order to confirm their claims that various changes in law and practice have led
to a significant reduction in the use of the
death penalty in the country over the last
four years.
The United States was again the only
country in the Americas and the only member of the G8 group of leading economies
to execute prisoners – 43 in 2011. Europe
and former Soviet Union countries were
capital punishment-free, apart from Belarus where two people were executed. The
Pacific was death penalty-free except for
five death sentences in Papua New Guinea.
In Belarus and Vietnam, prisoners were
not informed of their forthcoming execution, nor were their families or lawyers.
Public judicial executions were known to
have been carried out in North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia, as well as in Iran.
¡Roca!

In the majority of countries where people
were sentenced to death or executed, the
trials did not meet international fair trial
standards. In some, this involved the extraction of ‘confessions’ through torture or
other duress including in China, Iran, Iraq,
North Korea, and Saudi Arabia.
Foreign nationals were disproportionately affected by the use of the death penalty,
particularly in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.
But even in those countries that continue
to execute on a high level some progress
was made in 2011.
In the USA, the number of executions
and new death sentences dropped dramatically from a decade ago. Illinois became
the 16th state to abolish the death penalty.
A moratorium was announced in the state
of Oregon. And victims of violent crimes
spoke out against the death penalty
“Even among the small group of countries that executed in 2011, we can see
gradual progress. These are small steps
but such incremental measures have been
shown ultimately to lead to the end of the
death penalty,” said Salil Shetty.
“It is not going to happen overnight but
we are determined that we will see the day
when the death penalty is consigned to history.”
Amnesty International opposes the death
penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the
characteristics of the offender or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. The death penalty violates the right to
life and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and
degrading punishment.

Regional summaries
The Americas
The US was once again the only executioner in the Americas. A total of 43 executions were recorded in 13 of the 34 states
that retain the death penalty, a drop by a
third since 2001, and 78 new death sentences were recorded in 2011, a decrease
by half since 2001.
The Caribbean
An execution-free area, with the number
of countries imposing new death sentences appearing to be in decline. Only three
countries are known to have handed down
a total of six death sentences: Guyana,
Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.
Asia-Pacific
Positive signs questioning the legitimacy of capital punishment were evident
throughout the region in 2011. Not counting the thousands of executions that were
Vol. 1 Number 3

believed to have taken place in China, at
least 51 executions were reported to have
been carried out in seven countries in the
Asia-Pacific region. At least 833 new death
sentences were known to have been imposed in 18 countries in the region. The
Pacific sub-region was death penalty-free
with the exception of five death sentences
handed down in Papua New Guinea. No
executions were recorded in Singapore
and, for the first time in 19 years, Japan.
The authorities in both countries have previously shown strong support for capital
punishment.
Sub-Saharan Africa
Significant progress in 2011 - Benin adopted legislation to ratify the key UN treaty
aimed at abolishing the death penalty. Sierra Leone declared, and Nigeria confirmed,
official moratoriums on executions. And
the Constitutional Review Commission in
Ghana recommended the abolition of the
death penalty. There were at least 22 executions in three countries in sub-Saharan
Africa: Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.
Only 14 of the 49 countries in the region
are classified as retaining the death penalty.
Middle East and North Africa
At least 558 executions could be confirmed in eight countries. At least 750
death sentences imposed in 2011 could be
confirmed in 15 countries. The continuing
violence in countries such as Libya, Syria
and Yemen made it particularly difficult to
gather adequate information on the use of
the death penalty in the region in 2011. No
information was available about judicial
executions in Libya, and no death sentences are known to have been imposed. Extrajudicial executions, torture and arbitrary
detention were often resorted to instead.
Four countries – Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Yemen – accounted for 99 per cent of
all recorded executions in the Middle East
and North Africa.
The authorities of Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco/Western Sahara
and Qatar imposed death sentences but
continued to refrain from carrying out executions.
Europe and Central Asia
Belarus was the only country in Europe
and the former Soviet Union, and apart
from the USA the only one in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE), to have carried out executions in 2011, executing two men.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/deathpenalty-2011-alarming-levels-executionsfew-countries-kill-2012-03-27

CORCORAN SHU
REJECTS CDCR
PLAN
[The following is the formal rejection
of the CDCR’s new SHU and validation
scheme by men in the Corcoran SHU. Written to Kendra Castaneda on March 16,
2012, postmarked March 19.]
By J. Heshima Denham and Zaharibu
Dorrough, NCTT Corcoran SHU
or decades the California Department of Corrections (and Rehabilitation) has, with the support of the
U.S. government, operated a domestic torture program in California SHUs – at Pelican Bay, Corcoran and CCI state prisons
– whereby men are consigned to indefinite
solitary confinement, sensory deprivation
and constant illumination with the sole
intent of compelling these state victims to
become state informants.
This domestic torture program employs
as its key feature the “validation process,”
by which innocent “source items” – a tattoo, address, group exercise etc. – which
evidence no “overt unlawful acts” in furtherance of a “gang.” And the arbitrary and
subjective determinations of a staff gang
investigator of these “source items” is the
entire basis for consignment to indefinite
confinement in these sensory deprivation
torture units.
Following unprecedented peaceful, nonviolent hunger strikes by tens of thousands
of state prisoners and a global social outcry, CDCR has submitted a new “Security
Threat Group” management proposal that
states its intent to move to a “behaviorbased model” that focuses on prevention of
actual gang related criminal acts.
We have reviewed the proposal. Unfortunately, in its current form, it fails to meet
its stated intent and instead seeks to retain
the “arbitrary and subjective determination” standard for gang investigative staff.
That standard is the foundation of decades
of abuses and the very focus is the prevention of horrible crimes as the basis of
moving to a behavior-based model in one
breath; yet draft regulatory definitions, language and polices maintain the same status
quo of arbitrary and subjective staff determinations that are responsible for perhaps
the largest, most well hidden domestic torture program on earth.
A truly behavior based “gang” interdiction model, by definition, calls for a com-

F

17

plete abolition of arbitrary and subjective
determinations as a basis for consigning
these men, fellow humans, to eternity in
these torture units. By doing so, investigative staff will be free to focus their energy and resources on actually prosecuting
overt unlawful acts – i.e., actual criminal
conduct – as opposed to punishing men for
an address, photograph or their political
ideas that have NO relation to the violation
of civil or criminal law. Anything short of
this calls into question the validity of their
stated intent and their dedication to the
public good.
Editorial Comments
The content of this issue of ¡Roca! is an
expaned edition because I wanted to get all
of the material I had from the prisoners at
the Corcoran SHU into one isue of the paper. I tried to keep it at one stamp to mail
but failed so I added some more pages.
In terms of the primary content of this
issue, reader feedback is important. How
do the ideas presented by the NCTT (New
Afrikan Collective Think Tank) in the
Corcoran SHU sound to you? Write and let
me know and I’ll publish as many of your
responses as possible.

Yesterday I had to buy a new toner cartridge for the laser printer I use to print this
publication. It cost me $154. Out of that
cartidge I can print about 5,000 pages. This
issue will use up almost 2,000 of those
pages. The postage to mail this issue will
be $65. The labor involved in formatting,
printing, collating, stapling, folding, labeling, stamping, etc. I do myself. I’m in my
70s and my only income is Social Security,
which isn’t much for someone who has
spent 35 plus years behind bars.
Your financial help in keeping this newsletter going is not only essential, it is also
the yardstick by which I measure the importance of this effort. If it’s not important
enough to readers to materially support,
then I would prefer to spend my “golden
years” doing something a little more fun.
Two or three stamps a month from each
reader will help to keep ¡Roca! going. As
is the case with all prisoner-oriented publications, if you like them support them.
In addition to being the publisher of this
newsletter, I also edit Prison Focus newspaper and do the formatting (but not the
editing) of the monthly PHSS News. Some
of you may also know that I run the Prison
Art Project, a web site that sells the arts
and crafts of prisoners—a labor of love

that I’ve been doing since starting the site
back in 1999. This is why you see advertisements for Prison Art (such as the one
below) in the publications I edit.
The web site runs off a server that I maintain in my home. That server suffered a catastrophic hardware failure awhile back and
the site was down. It took me some time to
build a new server, and then figure out how
to configure the shopping cart software,
credit card processing, and all that. Well,
you artists in there will be pleased to learn
that the site is finally back up and running.
That’s it for this edition.
Ed Mead

Prisoner
Artists!
Prison
ArtArt
is ais
nonprofit
Prison
a nonwebsite.
It chargesthat
a 10
profit website
percent
feeaiften
yourperart
charges
or
craftservice
sells. Send
SASE
cent
fee
if
for a free brochure. No
your art or craft
SASE, no brochure. This
sells.
Send
a SASE
offer
void
where
profor
free
brochure.
hibited by prison rules.

Sell Your Art
On the Web
Sell prisonercreated art or
crafts (except
writings). Send
only copies, no
originals!
Prison Art Project
P.O. Box 47439
Seattel, WA 98146
www.prisonart.org
sales@prisonart.org
206-271-5003

Ed Mead
P.O. Box 47439
Seattle, WA 98146

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