I just finished reading The “Industrialization” of Sexual Exploitation, Imperialist Globalization, and the Descent into Hell.1 It was very informative and eye opening in how it ties everything together, and lays bare the connections between globalization, capitalism, and prostitution. It is particularly sickening, the influence of the U.S. military in the burgeoning of the sex industry in different nations and the whole sex-tourism thread, and how it ties into business interests.
It calls to mind the prison-industrialization system that is raping the United States, trampling myself and others like me beneath its boots. There is only one solution—and that’s revolution. I want nothing more than to facilitate this worldview into the minds of other prisoners around me. And when I leave this place, I want to fight for the cause on a deeper level.
It all comes together and makes sense. I cannot “unsee” everything that you revcoms have shown me. I have been reading your materials for over a year now, and I can’t get it out of my head. It calls to mind the Plato metaphor, the one about the cave, the sun, the shadows on the wall. Pretty much, I don’t see the shadows anymore, I have been led out of the cave and into the light, and now I see clearly the source of it all, what is “making” the shadows.
A lot of men in here should read that analysis mentioned at the beginning of my letter. Pornography is quite a commodity—in prison, especially. But many addicts of it don’t think too deeply about where it comes from, what lies at the basis of the production of it, the bedrock of exploitation, that feeds and nourishes the roots of it.
Well, that pamphlet really breaks all of that open. In fact, I’ve made contact with a 5-Percenter in here, and I’ve been sharing the Revolution newspaper with him. Actually, he has my copy of BAsics2 right now. I figured that would be the perfect book to get him started on. It’s short, sweet, and to the point. He has taken an interest in it, so I’ll keep on passing the newspapers, etc., on to him. I’m thinking, if I get him into this, he can get people in his “clique” into it, as well, and then it will build from there.
There are some Bloods in here that I’d like to reach out to, as well. I try to “bridge the gap” between the different cliques, gangs, etc. in here. If I get one of them into it, just one or two of whatever group, then their homies might get into it, by osmosis.
And really, that’s what the prisoners who subscribe to Revolution, who are getting the books and articles, that’s what we all need to be doing. Let’s get the fuck out of our comfort zones, put aside our petty squabbles, and reach past our differences, and connect with people we wouldn’t normally associate with. Make that contact, and it’ll take hold and spread.
In solidarity,
P.S. I am again receiving Revolution without delay.3 They weren’t coming through during June, July, and then I received 6 of them all at once. Maybe somebody in the mailroom was getting into it and reading it. We can only hope, right?
–A prisoner in Virginia
