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Michigan Committee FOR PRISONER'S RIGHTS

Michigan Committee FOR PRISONER'S RIGHTS image
Parent Issue
Day
1
Month
September
Year
1972
OCR Text

Michigan Committee FOR PRISONER'S RIGHTS

Throughout Babylon's Federal. State, County and City jails and prisons, our people, Black people, white people, Red and Brown people, Rainbow people, by the hundreds of thousands, even millions, live day after day under conditions of naked racism, sexism, brutality, mental torture and murder. Everyday, day after day, our people confront raw state power in its purest form. Prison. Prison is a totalitarian state in miniature, absolute exploitation and control of the majority by the minority.

In order for this exploitation and control to remain absolute it is necessary for the State and Federal governments and prison administrations to make the prisoner believe that there is no help or hope coming from those on the outside. "The State, giveth and the State taketh away." The ruling vampire class needs all people to accept their rules/roles, and for prisoners especially to accept as fact that honk is every where, is absolute. There is no other way, there is no life or world outside of this unspeakable madness called "The Amerikan Way." As the walls fall and the chains break and the monster begins to lose control more and more women and men rise in prison to become servants and leaders of the prison population, for these heroes the state machine grinds ruthlessly on to snuff the light of the brightest flame, George Jackson and the Soledad Heroes, Sam Melville and the slaughtered mass at Attica. For those who would just reach out and try to hold on to some of their humanity, or for those who would move, in any way to regain their human dignity, the dehumanizing, people gobbling lawnmower slashes on, to take parts of our people's hearts, minds, spirit, our future.

The Michigan Committee for Prisoners' Rights is organized to establish that there is an alternative to this wierdo world now controlled by the international bloodsucking octopus, imperialism. There is an alternative and we are part of it, with millions of people across Amerika and around the world, there is an alternative and we are building it now with our own hands, imagination and energy. The Michigan Committee for Prisoners' Rights is organized so that our brothers and sisters in prisons and jails can grow and develop their full cultural and political potential, and so that the people as a whole can share in the benefits of the powerful energy and imagination of our sisters and brothers in prison.

Two months ago MCPR was founded by the Rainbow People's Party, revolutionary crooks, ex-cons and rogues of every description, and other responsible, reasonable and righteously concerned and active people from the Ann Arbor community and surrounding area. MCPR took some rock n roll rainbow energy to the Michigan Training Unit in lonia, Michigan, and are presently negotiating with authorities to take the people's music to brother and sister prisoners throughout the State of Michigan. MCPR co-sponsored a rally on the diag with the Human Rights Party in support of the Michigan Prisoners' Labor Union that is now being organized by prisoners inside Jackson and Marquette prisons. (Hearings will be held by the Mich. Labor Relations Board in Lansing on Sept. 12; watch the Sun for further details.) MCPR speaks to churches, schools, universities, clubs and civic groups, MCRP works with other progressive and active prisoners' rights groups. MCPR, with the help of the Sun and the RPP now sends the Sun free to prisoners n FEderal, State, County and City jails and prisons as well as youth detention homes, reform schools, State and VA Hospitals, and other unusual places where people are held against their will. The Sun goes 1/2 price ($2 - one year) to soldiers. MCPR is in the process of starting a newsletter that will feature articles, essays, poems, and graphics produced primarily by prisoners; it will be sent to prisoners and those on the MCPR mailing list. The committee is in the process of contacting people's lawyers who will systematically deal with the killer legal questions and problems that must be resolved so men and women can receive even the barest semblance of justice. The whole area of community resources must be organized and coordinated in terms of jobs, housing, parole help, schooling, etc. MCPR's most ambitious project is the Milan Guest House. Milan, Michigan (on Rt. 23, 40 miles south of Ann Arbor) has a federal penitentiary that holds 600 men between the ages of 18 and 26; they come from as far away as California, Texas and Florida. Men and women in prison and their families and friends on the streets are usually poor. For them, to travel long distances to visit loved ones is a near impossibility. Some prisoners get only one or two visits a year because of the strain it puts on the people coming to visit. After the great expense of traveling the visitors are forced to spend still more money for motels and food. The Milan Guest House will offer free housing and food to families, friends and relatives who are visiting inmates in the Federal Penitentiary at Milan. A large house has been found for the initial down payment. (For more information contact Anne Downs, 534 Hope Street, Brighton, Michigan, 227-5378 or MCPR, Box 523, Ann Arbor.)

What is needed is a multi-leveled campaign, in the prisons, in the streets and in the courts and legislatures to expose the festering contradiction that exists in the whole institution of law and "justice", to educate people on the streets to the obsolete and outdated penal systems that exist in Amerika, and to help prisoners further develop themselves culturally , politically and spiritually. MCPR is moving to answer this need.

Power to the people! More power to Prisoners!

-- Pun Plamondon 28859-138

RPP