July, 1999

Philosophic dialogue within prison walls

Editor's note: Below we print excerpts from recent correspondence received by NEWS & LETTERS from prisoners.

Could see Marx's mind work

I have studied the first two sections of the philosophical dialogue N&L is having on Marx's CAPITAL. I am finding the study most rewarding. As I read the "Rough Notes," I could see Marx's mind working: the necessity of a profound understanding of each historic epoch if one is to understand the polemical, or contradictory nature of existence; or the understanding that all things-all knowledge-are transitory, or in the process of becoming; all of these are in Marx's CAPITAL.

It appears that because of Hegel, Marx was able to perceive his world through the eyes of dialectical materialism, rather than Kant's dialectical idealism. As a result of this new dialectic, and Marx's own intellectual courage, Marx was not only able to re-define labor as both the abstract (labor as activity, the source of value) and the concrete (labor power as a commodity itself), but was able to force another place setting at the table of political economy-and that place was the laborer.

With this new place setting emerged a new philosophy. It was a philosophy of labor, a view that true history is to be found in the day-to-day concrete struggles for liberation. I believe this is where Marx takes his greatest leap above all other theoreticians. Here he negates the contradiction between theory and action, creating a new dialectic, a philosophical praxis. What I am fascinated by-and terrified by-is Marx's connection between the bourgeois' perception of a commodity and theology. The things we produce now appear to define who we are and how we relate to one another. The intellectual may well be deceived in that s/he is conditioned to the theology of the commodity, but the worker is equally deceived not only in the theology but in the belief that s/he is engaged in "freely associated" labor.

In Marx's CAPITALwe can see the creation of capitalism (the infinite division of labor as a result of the Industrial Revolution), its life (the contradiction between the alienation and degradation of human labor and the increase in creativity and productivity brought about by such division), and its eventual demise as a result of this very contradiction. I agree with Dunayevskaya that the "proletarian" does indeed "grasp the truth of the present"-at least subconsciously-I just think we are afraid of it.

-T.M., Connecticut

Fighting 'North/South Hispanic trip'

I am a Mexican-American born in 1953 and raised in the Los Angeles area. When I first came to prison in 1973 I didn't have to face this North and South Hispanic trip. We convicts did our time, kept our noses clean and stood up for one another when The Man came down on us, when we felt it was wrong. I must say California state prisons are a lot different now from when I first started off.

You most likely have heard of the murders that have taken place here at Corcoran on the Security Housing Unit (SHU) exercise yard. It is very sad how these murders came down. A fight was set up between inmates-"cockfighters"-by the yard gunners and higher up officials. They ended up shooting the inmates dead in the yard! Five of the guards are now testifying against their own officials and there is a yard video that was taken when the inmates were shot dead.

These youngsters are fighting for something that they will never win, and the worst part is, The Man likes it like this. Ain't that a trip! You come into the joint now and the first thing they say is: "Are you a Northern or Southern Hispanic?" And if you're not with them you're against them.

Like it says in VOICES FROM WITHIN PRISON WALLS, us convicts years ago fought for what we have today! I understand very well what George Jackson believed in about this prison system. He saw it coming and stood up for himself. I know homie Luis Talamantez (Bato) personally. He was one of the "San Quentin Six" in the '70s. Hugo Pinell was with Jackson back in the late '60s when a guard got killed at Soledad Prison. Hugo got manslaughter for that charge and is now up at Pelican Bay SHU never getting out of the hole. He has been down in there 35 years, slammed down. But I don't see this system changing anytime soon. What we convicts fought, died and spilled our bloods for is all being taken away and no one cares about it.

You must keep your readers aware at all times of what is going on in these dungeons, especially the Control Units here. Maybe in time we can get to our youth and they can see some way to make changes themselves for the better. I pray that those who read the Voices pamphlet will share it with others so that they can understand what is really going on here behind the gray walls.

-J.S., California

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