!*Open Letter to Prisoners" by Sis. Kiilu
Posted by: "Nattyreb" [email protected]
Sun Feb 24, 2008 12:25 pm (PST)
Right On, Sis. Kiilu!
==========

Greetings All:
Obviously, prisoners won't be checking their emails to read
this. So I'm asking you to help me get this letter behind
the walls -- through
attaching it to your own correspondence or through your
publications that get
inside.

Much thanks,

In solidarity,

Kiilu (Nyasha)

--------------------------------------------------
----------------------

OPEN LETTER TO PRISONERS

From Kiilu Nyasha
February 2008

I'm writing to let you all know that while I have not been
able to pay close
individual attention to you, you're always in my thoughts,
inspiring me to keep
on fighting for your/our liberation.

Thank you for your cards and letters which I love getting
even though I can't
find the time/energy to answer them all.

Another Black History Month is here and we can all take
pride in our incredible
historic legacy. We are a people that has survived and
overcome a myriad of
obstacles to freedom, dignity, and equality under the
harshest conditions of
enslavement and oppression. We have a rich culture of
art, literature, dance
and music loved throughout the world.

Yet this new millennium threatens to submerge our proud
legacy, and replace it
with a culture of corruption. Our mores and principles
are being subverted as
we succumb to the erasure of our traditionally communal
lifestyle and
vulgarization of our ancestral culture.

I find the presidential race the most difficult time
period to tolerate in
American politics. It sickens me. The blatant corruption
in election campaigns
is mind-boggling, yet the corporate-controlled mass media
maintains the illusion
of a democracy with massive participation from the general
public. It's hard to
keep tabs on the hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted
on this nonsense
when every campaign grows more expensive than the last.
Just like every news
report on global warming notes the Arctic ice is melting
faster than
anticipated, faster and faster.

In fact, according to www.OpenSecrets.org <http://www.OpenSecrets.org/>, "...[T]
he candidates raised more than half a billion dollars in 2007. By some
predictions, the eventual nominees will need to raise $500
million apiece to
compete---a record sum...

"Democratic superdelegates have received $900,000 from Obama
and Clinton."
*Superdelegates??!!* More proof of the simple fact that we
don't have */one
person, one vote/*. Far from it! *_ _*

Prisoners are even more at the mercy of mainstream media since
you are seldom
privy to alternative media or to the Internet that might
provide the true facts
on the ground.

But one thing y'all do know better than any of us: Prison and prisoners are not
on the minds of Billary or Barack. In fact, the first time
I heard such words
come out of their mouths was when they agreeably called for
Cuba to release its
/political prisoners/ in the wake of Fidel Castro's resignation. They also made
it clear that they both consider Cuba an /enemy/ of the United States. In fact,
they agree on just about everything -- two peas in a pod.

Neither Clinton nor Obama seems to notice the U.S. has the
highest rate of
incarceration in the world -- and rising. The most recent
figures indicate a
rise from 2.2 million humans locked /behind the walls/ to *2.4 million*. Add
all those on some other form of penal control, probation,
parole, house arrest,
etc., and the total rises to approximately *7 million*.
California and Texas
still reign supreme at locking people in cages and setting
them up to be executed.

The rate of return or recidivism in the so-called Golden
State hovers around
80%. Could it be because prisoners are paroled, e.g.,
to the most expensive
city (San Francisco) in the country with $200 "gate money"
and a criminal record
that disqualifies them for subsidized housing and other
needed services? It
certainly aids and abets the continuation of an extremely
profitable prison
system that generates salaries for (non-degreed) guards of
up to and more than
$200,000 a year.

So I say to you who have been disenfranchised, I've
disenfranchised myself. I
refuse to participate in a completely corrupt electoral
process reduced to a
big-money game played on the people every two and four years
that changes
nothing and perpetuates the rich getting richer and the poor
getting poorer --
or homeless (another word I haven't heard from candidates),
enslaved, locked up,
or deceased.

*This is a global economy with one percent of the world's
population owning 80%
of the wealth, while billions live on less than a dollar
a day!*

I agree with George Jackson's analysis: "When we participate in this election
to win, instead of disrupt, we're lending to its credibility, and destroying our
own. With all the factors of control over the electoral process in the hands of
the minority ruling class, the people's party can always be made to seem
isolated, unimportant, even extraneous."

I think it's to our collective revolutionary credit that the fascist powers feel
compelled to put a /fresh face on fascism /-- a Black man or a woman. For those
who only associate fascism with Nazism: Modern-day fascism is the combined
dictatorship of big business married to government, characterized by militarism,
racism, and classism. Comrade George noted decades ago, "Fascism has
temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform."

We cannot be so naïve as to think that Barack Obama has broken all records in
fundraising for his campaign because he's going to change things for you and me.
Please. It should be obvious that Obama cannot and will not produce /real/
change, like moving from capitalism to socialism, redistributing wealth.

I think that in the current global context, the imperialists need a brown face
to deal with Africa and the Middle East, Latin America and Asia -- not to mention
the growing /majority/ of brown folks here whom the white supremacists in power
insist on calling /minorities/
/ /
Inside and outside of the walls, we must unite on the basis of /politics/ not
color, gender, ethnicity, or nationality. And it's high time our politics were
*/revolutionary./*

I love you and will continue to struggle for your release and our freedom till
my last breath.

Keep the faith.
/ /
Dare to struggle. Dare to win.